Symphony Hall
by radishface
Summary: CH.11 UP! PreJulia, Preseries Twentysomethings Spike and Vicious are lowpay hitmen for the Red Dragons. It's a life of carefree decadence until the Chinese arrive and Vicious comes to a realization. eventual SLASH, SxV
1. Apartments

****

The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Nineteen-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, But when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. 

Written for Andrea. 

****

Radishface

~ 

****

[ 1 ]

~

Vicious almost tripped as he went up the stairs, feeling fortunate that nobody was around. As far as things went, he had been a bit dizzy the entire day... that's what pot did to you, after all. But it was a nice feeling. 

Running a hand through his silver hair, he sighed, and leaned against the wall. His hair was sticky. No surprise, he had been gallivanting out the whole afternoon with different whores. All the money the Old Men had given him was gone that day. He didn't have anything to eat. He'd have to ask Spike for scraps, damned if he did. 

His keys jangled as he took them out of his pockets, and he was about to open the door when he heard breathy moans from the other side. He pounded the wall in frustration but gave a wry smile. Spike usually went out at night. He wondered who the pretty thing was this time. 

Yeah, well, maybe he'd give the fuzzy-haired bastard some privacy. Vicious sank down and leaned against the wall, lighting a cigarette, smoking it casually. He'd wait for the-- oh, there it was. That was quick. 

First a girl's voice, light, breathy, virginal, gave a couple moans, then a piercing scream. Vicious shook his head. As usual, he couldn't hear Spike at all. The man was so damned quiet when he was having sex. It was like he wasn't there at all. 

And what the hell would make him scream? Well, he did swear last night when a bullet nearly shot his ear off, but he killed the fuckers and then they went out and had ice cream. 

Vicious was surprised when Spike opened the door, his frizzy hair poking out in different directions like it always was, making him look like a clown. He was only wearing a pair of sweatpants, his abdomen glistening with sweat. The silver-haired man stood up, and Spike took the cigarette out of his mouth and stuffed it in his own, breathing in deeply. Then he handed it back.

"Shit." Vicious dropped it on the ground, crushing it beneath his shoe, grinding it with his heel. "I don't even want to know where your mouth has been." 

The man with the amateur afro gave him a discerning smile. "I didn't care where yours went, fucker, and I smoked it anyway."

Following him in, Vicious wrinkled his nose in disgust. He hadn't been back at Spike's apartment for a few days now, and the stench of unwashed clothes and sex hit him like a barrel of monkeys. Bad analogy. He rolled another cigarette with one hand, lighting it with the other, hoping that he wouldn't notice the smells if he was smoking. Weed always smelled better. "Is she decent?" He gestured in the direction of Spike's bedroom.

"Would you care?" Spike laughed, heading into the kitchen. "You can have a turn with her, if you want." He took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator (he was still such a little boy with his fucking OCD calcium intake), gulping it down. Vicious watched the white liquid run down the sides of his mouth and smirked to himself. 

"I'm done for today." He said, pulling up a chair and sitting down on it, taking off his coat and throwing it at Spike's feet. "I was out all afternoon, you didn't notice?"

"Of course I noticed." Spike replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, shoving the carton of milk back into the refrigerator, slamming the door shut. "I tried calling you this afternoon around lunch, but you weren't there." He shrugged, running hands through his hair. "Fuck, I need a shower." 

"I do too." 

"I only have _one_ towel." Spike shook his head. "You took all the other ones home with you when your dishwasher broke." 

"Just let me use it." Vicious said, looking at him with hazed eyes. "I won't care if I get your cum on my hair. You probably jack off into that towel, don't you."

"You'll probably get off on it when you use it." Spike grinned sarcastically. "I only think of you when I jack off, after all."

"So why don't you come do me, then?" Vicious said pleasantly, grabbing a paper cup from the table and throwing it at him. "Homo." 

"But anyway." Spike dismissed his words with a wave of his hand. "The Big Bad Wolf wants to see us tonight. Maybe we've got another grocery store we need to rob." He wiggled his eyebrows. "And maybe a drugstore, too. I can jack a couple condoms and no one will notice." 

Vicious groaned. "The friggin' boss can go screw himself on a pole." He made a show of drumming the table with his fingers. "What does he want now?"

The frizzy-haired man shrugged. "I don't know."

"If we really were robbing a drugstore, you could also steal some deodorant." Vicious smirked. "For yourself, that is. And maybe you could get one of those fruity air fresheners for your fucking stinking apartment. It smells like shit in here." He puffed on his cigarette, taking it out of his mouth and then blowing the smoke in Spike's general direction, watching it disperse. 

Spike shook his head. "Go use the shower, asshole." He yawned and stretched, making a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a purr. "I'll just get her to lick me off. She's a horny bitch. First time, too."

Vicious stood up. "You never have to pay, don't you?" 

"Virgins are more exciting." Spike scoffed in his direction. "I get to take lead. If you have a whore, she knows exactly what to do, so she's the one controlling you."

Vicious shook his head. "You dominating fuck. Why don't you just step into the world of S&M? You already have leather pants." 

"I don't wear 'em." Spike slurred, glancing in the direction of his bedroom. "I gave them away to Trev after he came out. Suited him more."

"Hang around homos and you're going to be one yourself." 

"Just take your fucking shower already." Spike said, good-naturedly. "You're the one who's going to smell like a rose, you pussy."

"Whatever." Vicious turned around and started walking to the bathroom. "Are you going to keep her around?" 

"What?" Spike asked, as if he hadn't heard. "God, no. You know _women_. Always needing love, all that shit. That's what's whack about homos, you know. It's always one-night-stands with them. Chicks are too friggin' possessive." 

"Then don't do virgins." Vicious called out, as he walked down the hall. "Get the cunts on the street corners." 

"I'm not getting an STD, bitch." 

Vicious laughed quietly, and opened the door to Spike's bedroom. A pair of big, brown eyes blinked in astonishment, and the girl on Spike's bed suddenly gathered the sheets around her, more shocked than she was nervous. 

"W- Who are you?" She stammered. Vicious gave her an amused glance and looked her once over. She wasn't hot, but she wasn't ugly. The big, innocent brown eyes got on his nerves, though. Fucking women. He hated the ones that were clingy.

Giving her a chivalrous smile, he grinned inwardly to himself. "You don't know what you just got yourself into." She blinked incredulously, then indignantly. 

Before the girl could say anything though, Vicious turned her back on her and stepped into Spike's bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Of course Spike would dump her, maybe in five minutes, if he guessed correctly. That was one of the things that Vicious liked about him-- his infidelity to women. But being his friend for a couple years now, Vicious couldn't say the same thing for himself. 

He peeled off his clothes and wondered what was up with the "Big Bad Wolf." Their boss had already sent them to kill off a couple opposing gang members yesterday night. There was probably a new gang in town and now they needed to defend their territory. 

__

Fuckers, Vicious thought suddenly, as he turned on the shower, stepping in the tub. _It's always the same thing over and over again._

But I'm a Red Dragon. I can't help it.

~ 

****


	2. Wolfe

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The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds (changed the age) Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. 

__

Notices: Changed their age. Be warned, this chapter is more Vicious-centric… (I think this whole fic is going to be, actually…)

****

Radishface

~ 2 ~

"Get _down!_" Vicious yelled as a hail of bullets rained over his head, loading his gun with one hand and holding a knife in his mouth. 

Spike was crouched in the alleyway of one other building, cradling his right hand, which was covered in blood. "Since _when_ did Wolfiekins have so many enemies?" He shouted good naturedly, over the gunfire. "It wasn't like this last time!" 

Vicious found himself laughing to himself, but the distraction made him lose the gun in his hand as it was shot out by some anonymous gang member to the opposite side of the street. The one lamp in the street was broken, so the light went on and off like an ambivalent firefly. "Shit," he muttered to himself, taking the throwing knife out of his mouth. 

A gunshot unexplainably close to him, and Vicious found himself catching a heavy load as a body fell into his arms. Glancing quizzically over at where Spike was, he found the other giving him a wry thumbs-up, a smirk on his face, then pointing to his gun. 

He turned the body over and glanced at the empty eyes, the spluttering countenance, and spit on the dead face. Vicious wrenched the gun out of the limp hands and set to searching the pockets for ammunition, grimacing as he wiped his hands on the man's coat. It was an expert gunshot to the neck, as Spike would have delivered any day. 

The distant whining of police sirens gave him a start, and he turned to look at Spike, who had already stood up and was preparing to sprint. Suddenly the gunshots ceased and there was more chaos as he and Spike ran down one way and the other gang members ran the opposite way. 

"Water Leopards?" Spike muttered as he shoved the gun in his pocket, and Vicious nodded. 

"I thought we scared them off last week."

"Fucking bastards are homo masochists, that's all." 

When they reached the rendezvous, Spike gave a sigh and slumped against the wall, lighting a cigarette and determinedly shoving it into his mouth. Vicious did the same. 

"You got hit?" The silver-haired man laughed, staring at Spike's bloodied sleeve. "Fucking pathetic." 

"It caught me off guard." Spike shrugged, masking the pain. "You were caught off guard too, you know. That's why I sent the asshole your direction." 

Vicious didn't let him see the gratitude in his eyes, looking down at the ground. "You have anything to wrap it with?" 

Spike mustered enough energy for a huff of laughter. "Do I look like I carry a first-aid kit with me, birthday boy?" His intake of breath sounded pained and he instinctively clutched at his arm. "Fuck." 

Vicious spat out the cigarette and ground it under his heel, reluctantly letting a worried tone filter through his voice. "When _is_ he going to show up, sending us all the way here to face a bunch of motherfucking assholes along the way, he's a motherfucker himself." 

A laugh from Spike's direction made Vicious turn his head. "Want to go home?" 

Vicious tried not to let his eyes wander down to Spike's arm, tried to show himself as unconcerned with the situation at hand. "A can of beer, a whore, and a bed sound pretty appetizing right now, yeah. If you call that home." 

"Well, you won't have to wait too long, unless Wolfe decides to lecture us today." 

Vicious shrugged. "We can't help that." 

They stood in silence for a while, Spike clutching at his arm and fusing a pained smirk on his face, Vicious keeping his expression aloof. A few minutes later, a black vehicle pulled up into the parking lot and a tall, gangly excuse for a man climbed out of the driver's seat, pulling up the collar on his turtleneck and he made his way to them. 

"So nice to see you two." He said in a honeyed voice, obviously amused. "I'm very proud. Only the two of you taking out the entire Water Leopards gang in less than fifteen minutes." 

"It was the police sirens that chased them away." Spike gritted out, moving his bad arm into the shadows so that Wolf couldn't see. "You shouldn't try to flatter us-- they're just a bunch of fucking cowards." 

"You couldn't have guessed." Wolfe raised an eyebrow and made his way over to Spike and grasped his arm, pulling it into the light, where he could see. He shook his head. "We can't take you to the hospital, you know. They'll be all over asking you how you got a bullet in your arm. Besides, you dress like a gangster." 

"Probably because I _am_ one." Spike retorted, a reluctant smile on his face. 

"But if you didn't have those clothes on, you'd look like an angel, a complete innocent." 

Spike raised an amused eyebrow and pulled his arm back, inspecting it, and Vicious cast Wolfe a sardonic smile. "Since when did you resort to overused pick-up lines to get what you wanted?" He shot, and watched as the gang leader's face settled into a look of restrained annoyance. He'd probably interrupted their little _moment_, hadn't he. "Spike's a regular whore already. How many different colors of hair are on your pillow, Spike?" 

Wolfe gave Vicious an interested look. "You would know this?" 

Vicious scoffed. "Took a shower there today myself." 

The gang leader smiled and turned to Spike, but his words were aimed at Vicious. "Are there silver-white hairs on your bed too, Spike?" 

The injured man gave both of them mock-annoyed looks. "Of course not." He cradled his bleeding arm, oblivious to Wolfe's innocently concerned gaze. "You and I both know that Vicious doesn't have that... sort of leaning. Persuasion." He gave a smug grin. "Whatever gentle, unabashed name you want to give it." 

Vicious stared hard at the ground. "Of course not," he repeated himself, but his voice wasn't as resolute as it was before. "Fucking no." 

Wolfe didn't catch his words, thankfully, didn't catch the tone of it, that would have brought him humiliation to absolutely no end. "Well, if you'd like, Spike, you could come with me and I could take care of that arm of yours. Unless, of course, Vicious..." He glanced over at the silver-haired man. "Unless you have the necessary provisions?" 

Vicious scowled, grinding his heel into the ground. Bastard knew that he didn't have the 'necessary provisions.' _Let me take care of the medical situations._ He had once said. _I'm the one with the doctorate, the medical degree._ Bastard knew the place he called his 'home' was an empty apartment with closets filled with weed and GHB and crystal and guns and bombs and redeye, little cash he had hidden away under what looked like a mattress. 

But he never slept in his apartment, always stayed up all night with Spike in tow, cruising at bars, in the alleyways. Slept during the day, here and there, on subway trains, on park benches, in Spike's apartment, on Spike's couch, on Spike's bed. 

Only once, though, did he sleep in Spike's bed. It wasn't that they were drunk or anything and they did that thing and regretted it the next morning, nothing like that. Vicious had O.D.'d himself on redeye and was suffering the aftershocks of the temporary edge it gave him. Spike practically had to carry him away from the alley where maybe twenty opposing gang members lay dead or bleeding, and Vicious was still kicking their dead bodies around in the air. Spike never used the redeye. Spike was always looking out for him, making sure hat at least one of them was still sober enough to get back home.

But those were the killing situations, that was in gang time. Afterwards, when they had day off, at night, always, it would be Spike getting drunk and Vicious having to drive them back. Vicious didn't like alcohol. Unlike redeye, it muddled the senses, not enhanced them. He couldn't afford to lose control. Who knew what he might do, might have done. 

"Oh, he has a first-aid kit." Spike grinned at him, through his pain, and Vicious glanced up sharply, first looking at Spike with some bewilderment, then at Wolfe who was looking very, very pissed off. Fucker wanted a lay, fucker didn't get his lay. 

"He does, does he." Wolfe said disapprovingly, clicking his tongue. Spike gave him a winning smile. 

"Vicious is a fucking Boy Scout. Always knows his safety procedures, and he's always prepared." He grinned at Vicious, and Vicious stared at his arm.

__

Got a bottle of lube right in my pocket just in case I decide I can't wait to bang a whore when I get home and do it on an alley wall instead, Vicious thought, eyebrows knitting. _Bottle of lube there just in case I fucking turn into a homo and decide I want to get some up the ass. Girls don't need lube. Whores are already wet enough when they want to be. It's like a mechanism._

"Surprising." Wolfe smiled disarmingly, and Vicious glared back. 

"So are you going to tell us why we're here?" Vicious tried to keep the sneer out of his voice. "Or was it that you're still mustering the courage to ask Spike out on a date?" 

Amber eyes gave him a quizzical, slightly angry look, but Wolfe didn't look put out at all. 

"No, I'm just here to tell you that there's a new gang in town, that we have to take them out."

"And you couldn't have just called us?" Vicious shook his head. "Or did you miss his pretty face?" He didn't need to say whose. 

"Technology, boys." Wolfe chuckled, running a hand through his hair. "There's a lot to be said about bugs. I'm afraid I let one of them into my house and they bugged my phone."

"So use a pay phone, then." Vicious snapped. "I'm sure you can afford a phone card, unless you've spent all your money on rent boys." 

"Renting doesn't come cheap, that's true." Wolfe smiled, showing teeth. "But they've got an operator, hackers, the works. All online, twenty-four hours a day. They don't go to sleep." 

"And how are we supposed to, as you say, 'take them out?'" Vicious scoffed. "They don't seem like the kind of street gangsters we're used to dealing to, the dipshits we're used to shooting."

"The syndicate you're talking about is the kind of syndicate that has the money, the make-believe business building, and the hot bitches in the slinky red dresses that hang onto the boss's arm when he goes out." Spike shook his head. "You know we don't have the resources to tackle those."

"You forget your place, _Wolfe_." Vicious spat out. "We're just street fuckers. We do small drug trade, we do little things, we kill people that the world won't miss."

"And those kind of syndicates we're talking about have international drug trade, they commit big crimes behind the backs of people who wouldn't matter less." Wolfe said. "Of course, you would know this, Vicious." He grinned charmingly. "You're descended from one of those sorts of syndicates yourself. Too bad you couldn't live up to your father's expectations? You can't even take over five spurts of redeye before you pass out, and you think you're--" 

"I think that's fucking awesome." Spike interrupted, eyes completely emotionless as they stared at the gang leader. "But you were saying?" 

Vicious was seeing red without the help of any redeye. It was sort of funny, actually. Look at the world swirl in front of him. Look at Wolfe's face split in two. It was like he was drunk. 

"We've got the backing we need to rise to syndicate-level, boys." Wolfe said in a swaggering tone, as if he were chewing on a cigar. "Shady Chinese business men agreed to sponsor us to get rid of these fuckers. Straight from socialist Asia and we've got ourselves a bunch of corrupt old men who can advance us." 

"We can trust them?" Vicious said. "You're going too fast. You're going to get yourself killed." 

"Doesn't matter if we can trust them or not." Wolfe replied, looking out at the city lights. "If they switch loyalties on us, we'll do the same. They're just rich old men. We're the ones with the experience." 

Wolfe didn't usually say things like that, Vicious thought, and stared at the gangly figure out of the corner of his eye. He was acting irrational. Stupid 'rich old men' could hire gunmen, the bastards. "What's in it for you?" 

Their leader had the decency to look surprised. "Why, I told you they were socialists, didn't I? It's a big gain for everybody." His voice had a syrupy quality to it now. "Our little obscure street-gang called the Red Dragons will advance to a syndicate reputation and we'll advance in the world. I'll get my power, the rich old men will be rid of their opponents, you'll be wearing Italian suits, Vicious, and my dear Spike will have all the slinky red-clad ladies he wants." 

Spike grinned. "Sounds like a beautiful proposition. There are still faults, I'll guarantee that." 

"We'll take the risk." Wolfe said, and turned around, walked back to his car. "Do you need a ride? If I remember correctly, you came here on foot. I hope you aren't too exhausted." Such consideration, Vicious thought. It was so considerate you wouldn't have even thought of asking that at the beginning of their conversation. 

"Our car was shot down by the stoplight." He said flatly, grey eyes peering up at Wolfe's arrogant face. 

"It was a piece of shit, anyway." Spike added. "Jacked it from some old lady down the street. She had a heart attack two weeks ago, she won't be missing it." 

~

They were dropped off at Spike's apartment, and Spike graciously refused all offers for Wolfe to come in and assist him. They barely made it to the front door before Spike collapsed in a heap. Vicious immediately picked him up and slung his arm around his shoulder, searching Spike's pocket for a key and jamming it in the lock, hastily kicking the door open and nearly falling over once they got inside. 

"You _bitch._" He found himself saying as he removed Spike's jacket, his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. "You should have said something back there. I could have used a break from all of that shit coming out of Wolfe's mouth." 

"Yeah." Spike said drowsily, nodding his head, but it was a motion caused more by the lack of blood rather than agreement. "But he would have done the same thing you're doing." His voice slurred, and Vicious looked up, brow furrowed. 

"You want me to stop?" He said, his voice barely audible, barely controlled. "Can you take care of this yourself? I'll go. I'll go and let you bleed to death." 

"No, no." Spike said, still in a state of blissful, barely-there oblivion. "I didn't... didn't mean it like that. Don't get pissed off, Vicious, don't get..." He stopped to take a breath, and Vicious gripped the material of his jacket, hands squeezing the cloth until they turned white. 

"I'm not pissed at you." He found himself saying, a wave of calm washing over him. "You're just an idiot, that's all. Who knows how much blood you've lost." He continued with the buttons, and managed to slip the shirt off, grimacing at the amount of blood on the sleeve. 

"Just meant..." Spike tried again. "Just meant that he would have taken my shirt off, like you're doing, and then he would have jumped me." He laughed, and Vicious glanced up again. 

"Would you have let him?" He asked quietly, and knew that now wasn't the time, wasn't the place, but he wanted to ask. Let him ask. 

"I wouldn't have done anything to stop him, would I?" Spike said, his voice not more than a murmur. "I wouldn't have liked it. But you would have stopped him, you would have told him to..." he shuddered. "... to fuck off." 

"Yeah." Vicious whispered, watching Spike's eyes close in the dark. "Yeah, I would have." 

****

~

How was that? ^^;; Too weird? Too cliché? Open to all suggestions, please C&C! 

As for the next chapter… I dunno. More about Vicious's life. Remember how Wolfe mentioned something about his dad being a big-time syndicate member? And of course, more slash. Hopefully. 


	3. Little Prince

The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. 

Radishface

~ 3 ~

Vicious had decided to spend the night at Spike's, not that it was anything new. They usually drunk themselves into oblivion-- Spike, anyway, and Vicious would have to drag him home, and make sure he didn't puke on the carpet, otherwise his apartment would be smelling like a shit until he decided to clean it up. 

Maybe Spike wasn't _that_ bad in his habits. But he was nonchalant about things. 

Vicious fiddled with the cigarette in his fingers, staring at the white of the refrigerator door in Spike's kitchen, which was blissfully bare. Maternal refrigerators had all sorts of notes and magnets and various elementary school paintings stuck onto the white door, papers would rustle when it was opened. Spike's had a calendar on the top, where the freezer was, and it was unmarked, perhaps even two years old. 

He didn't remember much about when he was a child, Vicious thought, as he stared out the window, the first light of dawn creeping through hesitantly, crawling on the floor with orange and yellow fingers. He might have painted something unintelligible with his fingers in school, he might have sat cross-legged in the middle of a classroom, listening to stories about giants and dragons and princes. 

His house wasn't poor, Vicious remembered. His mother had been strangely distant, light hair and light eyes never focusing too long on one person or one thing at a time. She cooked his meals, but they tasted of white chalk and bland lumps of starch, without color. She had tucked him into bed, had turned off his light, had picked him up from school, had killed herself, the water in the bathtub a swirl of clear pinks and reds, spiraling out of her wrists. 

And then his father had come home, Vicious remembered clinging onto the expensive trousers, the loudness of the usually quiet house as men in uniforms marched in, asking what her daily routine was, what she did, and his father had replied that she stayed home, and when they told her that they had found traces of morphine in her body, in her blood, his father's face had become stony. 

His father had placed a careful hand on his head, a gesture meant to calm, and he had let himself be calmed. He had lost his mother, his source of maternal love and eternal tranquility. He didn't feel anything. 

And then his father had sent him away. 

At the boarding school, somewhere, he dressed well, in tailor-fit grey pants, in a clean shirt and a vest, a red tie to match. He was only a little boy then, and without his mother there to tell him when his hair was too long, he let it grow a little, past his ears. It was thick, silver hair, and the teachers at the school looked his direction, their gnarled, adult hands seeking to pet it, sometimes the fingers trailing lower, to the back of his neck, where they rested. 

When he was an adolescent, he was a scrawny, pathetic thing, always the one to huddle in the back of the classrooms, skirting meals as if they meant nothing to him. He made enemies without knowing it, those other boys who sneered at his light hair and his grey eyes and how he didn't have a family to return to when summer vacation arrived. 

Of course these accusations were not true. He had returned to the house, not his mother's apartment, but his father's house located by the ocean, huge glass windows facing the sea, the roar of the sea nothing more than a whisper in his ears. When his father was home, it was always with very beautiful women with long, silky tresses who smiled at him and stroked his face with thin fingers, and then disappeared when his father disappeared in the vastness of the house. 

It was the day before summer vacation one year, and he was packing, doing everything in a slow, leisurely way, his skin stretched tight over bony fingers, so pale he was almost translucent, a ghost of a shadow, and even more severe than that. And one of his roommates, who usually left him alone, came over to him. 

Had asked him a question, hostile, and he had replied vaguely, his mind elsewhere. He had been turned around by the shoulders, and startled, his hand had lashed out, shock in his features, around him. And then he was knocked to the ground. It was then he was genuinely nervous, with strong legs on either side of his hips, calloused fingers digging into his wrists, and he was reminded of when his mother died, her own wrists hollow with scarlet tears. 

Oh, but something had stirred, and he had felt it. Apparently, the other boy had as well, and jumped off him as soon as Vicious acknowledged the feeling. It wasn't much, but perhaps the other boy had felt it more keenly than he did. He was left on the ground, his head spinning, while the other boy walked out the door, not bothering to mutter a caustic remark, not bothering to earn the last laugh. 

That night at his father's house, he was eating his dinner, watching the familiar ebb of the waves and the moonlight off the tide, a white snake that crept from one end of the beach to the other. And today, his father was displeased with the maid for having knocked over one of his rare, priceless antique vases, and was consulting with her in his office. The woman he brought home today had sauntered into the kitchen, as he drank the last drops of water out of his cup, his plate only half finished. 

"You're his son?" She had asked him, her manicured fingers wound around the stem of a wine glass. 

He had nodded, and knew that she was not the ones he usually brought home with him, the ones that knew how to hold wine glasses and lean over the bar so that just the right amount of skin on their backs was shown, the right amount of chest expanse bared. She showed too much, or too little. 

"You don't go to school here." She stated, and did not wait for him to answer, tossing her golden hair over her shoulder, flickering her blue eyes out to the sea, and then back at him, and then at his hands, which were resting on the edge of the table. She noticed the blue and black marks encircling his wrists, and her eyes narrowed, and she smiled. 

"Fight?" She laughed. "Boys will be boys." 

He wanted to shake his head, and tell her, no, it was a _tryst._

But she stopped laughing, and a little of that tenderness, the maternal quality that women like that rarely showed, was fused into her features, and in her voice. "You'd better be careful." She smiled, an uneven smile. "You're his only son." 

That could have meant many things, he had been thinking, as his father came down with the maid, who had her gaze on the floor. His father smiled at the woman and dismissed the maid, nodding at him like he was a guest in the house, fairly welcome, but merely a guest, and not his only son. 

But he _was_ careful after that, and he wasn't a scrawny, pathetic, miserable thing anymore. The words had changed him, for some unknown reason. 

He remembered coming home for winter break, remembered the house in a mess and his father stuffing something in a suitcase, a phone pressed to his ear, his lips moving frantically, words coming out sometimes, sometimes it was just his lips moving. He had eyed his son as he walked through the doors, his eyes had widened slightly with vague surprise, as if he hadn't expected him. He told the person on the phone to wait. 

"Pack." He'd told the boy. "We're leaving in six minutes." 

And he remembered standing perfectly still, the absence of confusion and anxiety, as he asked why. 

"They've got me." His father had stated simply. "We have to go." And then he had rolled up his sleeves, and had walked into his office. Vicious walked into the kitchen, dropping his school bags on the table, poured himself a glass of water, and waited. 

His father came out with a stack of papers, a few vials of red liquid. Setting aside two vials, he threw the papers into the fireplace and struck a match, everything smoking and burning, the edges of the paper shying away from the flames, only to be ignited themselves, a futile resistance. 

He had never asked his father how they had acquired so much money, so many things. It wasn't his to know. 

His clothes had been packed away in a small suitcase, had been thrown into the back of the car. There was nobody in the house besides the two of them. There were no women to complain about the furniture, the jewelry. 

He had slid into the passenger seat of his father's black sedan, the sun setting dangerously behind them. His father's hand on the stick shift sped the car up to the highest gear it could go and even higher, the world a blur by them, only he was staring out the window, fascinated as the glimmer of the sea faded to an undecipherable smudge of volatile light. 

He should have known it would happen, it was inevitable, the way his father looked then, placid, like the reflection of clouds in a lake before a thunderstorm, the eye of the hurricane. He couldn't be sure in the orange of the sunset, but his father's eyes looked red, the intensity of his concentration was frightening. 

Too fast, for some reason, and the car had flipped over, his head had turned to look at his father's before they collided with the ground, the man's features were schooled into the utmost calm, fearless, and resigned. All within a split second, it barely seemed human, and his father had somehow managed to unlock the doors, and unbuckle his seatbelt, push him out of the car into the air. 

He had watched himself fly out of the vehicle, the man in the car not his father, but a stranger, and from his position in the air as he fell, it was like he could see the police cars twenty miles back, chasing the wreckage with the stupidity of an animal hunting a fire. 

And then he had woken up in a different place, in a room with walls of white, and he had correctly assumed he was in a hospital. A hospital in a city he didn't know, nor did he care to know. He was released without any legal complications, the son of a dead man, or the son of a living man whose face would be unrecognizable to his offspring, a mesh of wires and synthetic skin. He had been separated from his father, and he didn't care. 

In the city, it was simple to find the right and wrong places to eat, to dine, to bed. And he quickly found all the wrong places, sought the connections from the wrong people, his father's kind. They asked him his heritage, where he had come from, he answered with a dead honesty, and they said they claimed to know his father, and he was, for a short time, revered as the child of a god. 

And a man named Wolfe had offered him admission into a gang called the Red Dragons, something small, an insignificant group of nonentities that the local police only considered as a catch not worth making unless there was nothing else to be done. With his admission, the Red Dragons gained some notoriety for housing the son of the kingpin that had ruled half of the underworld. He had accepted this fact about his father without a grimace, he had suspected something had been like it all along. 

Vicious learned quickly, how to hold a gun, how to shoot accurately and deadly. Bulletproof vests were no problem, because gang members were too proud to wear them. He learned how to pick locks when silence was necessary, he learned to shoot them open when it didn't matter. He learned how to disguise his footsteps in the dark of corridors and his voice over the phone, learned how to recognize the signs of rendezvous, learned an honor that would eventually serve as his death. 

He was Wolfe's favorite. Wolfe, who was only a few years older than him and always seemed infinitely more sophisticated, more secular, knew more than him. But over time, Vicious grew to know him as a pretender of those things, one who wished and never would attain. But he went around in a nihilistic way, not minding that Wolfe had sucked him into a petty trap, an enclosure to use the Red Eye's son as a way to temporarily boost the infamy of the Red Dragons. And when the Red Dragon's status in the underground began to decline, so did Wolfe's favoritism.

And then Wolfe somehow managed to lure an innocent into the Red Dragons. 

They hadn't gotten along instantaneously. Wolfe had recruited a fluffy-haired, tall and gangly person much like himself in physique, completely different in attitude. Whereas Wolfe was an insufferable and pompous bighead with his brain in the clouds and his dick in the air, Spiegel had been a shy person who bit his bottom lip when he smiled, embarrassed. His personality was a breath of fresh air among the other Red Dragons, who were coarse, crude, and obnoxious. 

A shy kid, Wolfe had called him, had smiled on him in a different way. Wolfe had told Vicious to teach Spiegel the basics, and Spiegel had approached the matter with a matter of casual enthusiasm, trying to mask the brightness in his eyes. 

And at first, Vicious had looked down upon him, not daring to order him around as that was Wolfe's job, but merely taught him the most elementary of basics. Shoot a gun, fine, don't care where you hit, did you miss?, that's fine, I have better things to do. Spiegel, he murmured the name often, his voice never reaching above a disdainful whisper. Why did you join the Red Dragons? 

The youth's first gang war had come unexpectedly quickly, a test of his new abilities. At the time, Vicious had been out wandering home from the bars, his cell phone turned off, hanging like a dead weight in his pocket. Wolfe hadn't been able to reach him and tell him that Spiegel had gotten himself into a fight in the pool hall down by the fifth avenue, that he had managed to kill five Monazites before backup had arrived, scattering them. He had turned on his cell phone later, found a frantic message, Spike was in the hospital, had hauled himself up there, didn't Vicious even _tell_ him that they were supposed to send all injuries to Dr. Nyugen, the back alley abortionist? It was his responsibility, get the kid out of the hospital before authorities could question them. 

Vicious had driven up to the hospital, had told the receptionist he was Spiegel's first cousin. Strangely enough, the computer records showed, when she checked, he was. Wolfe must have gotten Eddy to hack into the database and changed Spiegel's family history. The reception gave him a bored smile, looked him once over, his tired eyes, his silver hair, his heaving chest, and told him that Spiegel was on the third floor, room 340B. 

"You bastard." He said, as he stormed through the door, not bothering with the nurse who had jumped back a step from Spiegel's bed. "You _bastard._" 

The nurse hastily exited, leaving the two alone. Spike was propped up on four pillows, a bandage wound around his head, over his right arm. The knuckles on his left hand were broken and the dried blood caked itself on his hand, and Vicious wondered why that hadn't been wrapped and set like the rest of his wounds. 

Spiegel had seemed to read his mind, and he laughed. "The nurse was just about to do that before you came." 

Vicious stared at him unblinkingly, scowled in the face of good humor. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. Damn kid was his responsibility. For the first time, he felt the pang of anticipated consequence. If he lost Spiegel, then he lost his position, his status, on the Red Dragons. And then he'd have nowhere to go. It shouldn't matter to him, but it did, stung him with all the force of a needle piercing his eye. 

He'd grabbed the roll of bandages from the counter and rolled up his sleeves, unwinding the gauze, cutting a piece with a pair of scissors. Spiegel had been watching him with a quiet surprise, his hair in his bandaged face and his shirt half-buttoned, revealing more bandages criss-crossing over his chest. No, he had sounded fine when he was talking. No hoarse struggle for breath, no puncture in the lungs. Maybe the bullets just grazed the side of his hip, his chest, his arms, fingers in quest for touch. 

The red stains on the gauze blinded him for a moment. 

"Who was I supposed to go to?" Spiegel asked him, and Vicious looked up quickly. 

"Dr. Nyugen." He replied curtly. "Poyntell Avenue, the alley behind the piano warehouse." 

"Oh." He laughed, but it sounded weak now, a shade of the former brightness. "You never told me." 

"You would have thought to ask." Vicious said, a raspy murmur. "I would have told you." 

"What?" Spiegel's attention focused on him, the man sitting at his side, bandaging his arm. 

"But maybe you didn't want to _ask,_" Vicious went on, "because you didn't think you'd get hurt?" 

"I didn't start anything." Spiegel defended, warily. "They were--" 

"You were supposed to start something." Vicious muttered, angry, for some reason. "With the right backup, you could have done anything and fucking escaped without a scratch." 

"I'm not hurt." 

"Then get up." Vicious stood up himself, facing the door. "We need to go. I'll have Dr. Nyugen check the rest of your wounds." 

"Sure." The easy smile had come back, despite the obvious pain he was in. "Let me put on some pants." 

Vicious stared at the door while Spiegel crawled out of the squeaky cot, keeping his groans of pain muffled as he limped to a chair where his blood-stained trousers were, the sound of cloth rustling, zippers fastening. And then a hand on his shoulder and nearly sent him jumping twenty feet in the air. 

"Spiegel..." He said, warningly. _Don't get too close._

The other withdrew his hand too quickly, like he'd been burned, and almost tripped over his own legs, wobbling unsteadily, unused to standing again. "Sorry," He replied casually. "Lost my balance for a minute there." 

He limped like a newborn colt as they went down the hallway. They didn't say anything to each other in the elevator, and Spiegel had blithely protested to the receptionist at the counter, ignoring stares from the nurses and doctors, insisting he was fine. Vicious had intervened, saying his aunt was dying of leukemia back at home, that they needed to return home immediately. 

"I heard it was you who started the fight." Vicious said, once they were in his car. "I got a call from Wolfe." 

"Yeah, it was me." Spiegel said sheepishly, almost proudly. "I don't know. Fucking stupid reason, though." 

Vicious didn't say anything, waited for the response or the one that wouldn't follow. 

"They were just saying some things, that was all." He shook his hair out of his face, unable to do it with his hands. "They know a lot about you. More than I do." He grinned, impersonally, facing the window. "Kept saying things about you, what a whore you were, some other things. I just happened to be in the same room, and I heard them, and... I don't know." He trailed off, his confidence waning, suddenly embarrassed at his display. "It was a stupid thing to do." 

Vicious felt his vision seem to contract to a small pinpoint of light, his breathing shallow, heartbeat slowing, his world seemed to be a small, pulsing center of numbness, and his hands clenched on the driving wheel. 

"Vicious." Hoarsely whispered, heavily intoned, coming from far away, and he turned to look at Spike, not Spiegel, not an impersonal last name that didn't mean anything to the listener. It was like that one night when that woman his father brought home had told him to be careful, it was a small and strange moment, and he didn't know quite what to make of it. 

"Vicious." 

He blinked, startled out of his dream-like state, his head spinning slightly, and he realized the cigarette had become a long cylinder of ash now, still burning, dangerously close to his fingers. 

Crushing it hastily on a napkin, he heard Spike's voice coming from the bedroom, strangely strained and raspy, like he had just swallowed bile and vomit, making his throat scratchy and red, ripping it out in torrents of flesh. Vicious threw the cigarette into the sink and stood up, the feeling returning to his legs again. 

"I feel fuckin' awful." The voice rasped jokingly as Vicious walked into the bedroom, carefully stepping over stray clothes and cigarette butts. "Did I drink too much again? O.D. on something?" 

Vicious stared at him blankly, sun falling through the blinds in horizontal strips of light, catching the light on his face, his eyes as they blinked, growing accustomed to the morning light. His left hand grasped the sheets, his right hand was limp at his side. As Spike sat up in his bed, the sheets slithered off his chest, fell over his hips, and loosely draped there. 

Spike yawned, giving a slight groan of pain as the feeling in his right arm returned. "I'm just kidding." He laughed, sliding off the bed. The silver-haired man turned away, walked to the blinds, looked out the window, looked at anything else. 

"You got shot in the arm." Vicious said, his voice carefully neutral. He was tired, that was it. He had stayed up half the night making sure Spike didn't accidentally vomit in his sleep, went into his room periodically at night to make sure the wastebasket was on the right side of the bed, depending on which way Spike's head was facing. The moon had been high that night, fell in thick beams through the blinds like the sun was doing now. He had sat on the couch or in the kitchen when he wasn't up walking around, had wasted a box of cigarettes, lit, not smoked once or twice before they had burned out. 

"It's kind of obvious." Spike said, and Vicious heard the footsteps going in the direction of the shower. "Fuckin' hell, I won't be able to jack off for another two weeks." 

~

That was a change in writing style from the previous chapters… more rambly. O_o I suppose listening to floaty music doesn't help when trying to write a gritty gang fanfic. 

Hahahaha, can anyone tell that Vicious is… having certain feelings? For someone? I think I might have made it a little vague. Nothing ever writes out the way I want it to. 

As for the next chapter… Two new characters introduced, Vicious gets in touch with his feminine (j/k, j/k) side. Don't worry, they're not original characters like that annoying Wolfe is, but from the Bebop series. ^_~ C&C is very muchly appreciated. 


	4. Orange Skies

****

The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. Eventual SLASH. 

****

Radishface

~ 4 ~

"Guys'll do anything for sex. Girls'll do anything for comfort." 

"What?" 

"Something I heard." 

A smile. "I thought so. That doesn't sound like anything you could make up." 

A friendly punch. "Watch it." 

Vicious watched this exchanged out of the corner of his eye as he stood outside, appropriately out of sight. Spike had just come of the bar, the tinted glass of the door obscuring his vision so that he couldn't get a good look at Spike's expression as the door was half-open, Spike talking to somebody in the doorway. 

"So." 

"Yeah." 

"What happened to your arm, man? What'd you do now?"

Spike laughed. "I got shot." 

More laughter. Vicious wondered what was so hilarious. 

"Tried to hotwire Mitchell's car again?" 

"That piece of shit? You must be fucking out of your mind." 

"Yeah. Nothing's ever good enough for _fucking_ Spiegel." 

It was a pun on words, Vicious thought. _Fucking_ the adjective, or _fucking_ the verb? Did he even know the difference? Did Spike know the difference? 

"So. You need to go now?"

"Yeah. I've got a date waiting for me." 

"She hot?" 

It was then that Spike caught his eye through the tinted glass door, that he gave a grin of acknowledgement. He couldn't wave, since his free hand was holding a bottle and his other hand was bandaged, but it was enough, at least. Vicious felt himself looking back as he leaned against the wall outside, one hand in his pocket. 

"Sure." Spike answered, turning back around, and gave a little purr under his breath. "But what's better? Hot or slutty?" 

Vicious looked away.

The other person gave another chuckle. "I don't know. Hot, slutty. How about both?" 

"You don't _get_ both." 

"You don't want a chick with brains?"

Spike snorted. "What's the use?" 

"Yeah, I guess." 

"Anyway." 

"Anyway." 

Vicious felt his vision darken, become blotched with red. He wanted to ask himself who Spike was talking to. He wanted to know what it was like to go in the bar, watch sports on the grainy television, sneak his foot up some unsuspecting girl's calves, nudge elbows with the people sitting next to him. He wanted to do all that, he wanted to take a girl home and fuck her, see Spike's expression as he fucked her, Spike watching casually from the other end of the room, maybe smoking a cigarette, as Vicious watched him as well, holding the girl's hands above her head, ramming into her, peering at Spike through slitted eyes, sweaty bangs plastered against his face. 

Spike had invited him along earlier that day. 

"You sure you don't want to come?" Spike had asked him, while brushing his teeth that morning. Vicious had still been there, had been smoking a cigarette in Spike's apartment, had tried to be casual about it. 

"No." He'd said. 

"It's just going to be me and some other guys." Spike said through a mouthful of toothpaste. "Don't be _shy._" He chuckled. "Or do you have errands today?"

Vicious nodded. He didn't like the way Spike phrased that, _errands._ It was like he was an errand boy, like a paperboy, like a grocery boy. Let's go do chores for our fucking _mother._ Let's go and buy some chicken at the market for _mother._ No, it wasn't like that, but Spike made it sound that way. 

Vicious didn't say anything, and Spike shrugged, his shoulders a smooth, feline movement in the mirror, as Vicious watched. 

"Suit yourself." 

He had spit into the sink, had gargled with mouthwash, had spit that out too. And Vicious had stood outside much like he was doing now, pretending not to observe, but observing anyway. 

"You have an appointment with Nyugen this morning." 

"Hell if I go." Spike had come out of the bathroom, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, stifling a yawn at the same time. "I wanna sleep." 

"I already called him." Vicious said. "He'll be expecting you at eleven." 

"What time is it now?" Spike trudged into the kitchen, and Vicious followed him. 

"About ten." 

"I have an hour, then." Spike grabbed a mug from the cupboard and looked at the bubbling coffee in the coffeemaker. "Coffee?" He mock-exclaimed. "For me?" 

"I thought you would need it." Vicious shrugged, not enjoying the scrutiny from Spike. "After all... that." 

"Sure." Spike poured himself a cup with his left hand. "So, what's the appointment for?" 

"Your arm, idiot." 

"Oh, _that._" Spike snickered, and swung his right arm around. Vicious watched expectantly. "I'm fine, really--ow." 

"Are you all right?" He said. His voice was quiet, subdued, almost, as Spike dramatically clutched at his right hand, making faces and sticking his tongue out while the coffee balanced on the edge of the counter precariously. 

"I'm just kidding." Spike laughed, and the pain was nothing. 

"So." 

"So." 

Vicious looked up, and Spike was looking at him now, his sleeves rolled up so that the bandages going down his right arm were all visible, a crooked grin on his face. 

"Who was that?" Vicious asked, before he could stop himself. No, he didn't want to know. He _couldn't_ want to know, because what use would that be to him? 

Spike shrugged, and the grin subsided, and Vicious felt a pang of something. "I don't know. Somebody I met." 

"Drinking buddies now?" He found himself asking, then wondered why he was being so absurd. 

"No." Spike shook his head. "So." He shuffled his feet, looked mildly uncomfortable. Vicious thought he looked like a schoolboy, not a gangster, not somebody who could shoot somebody full of bullets and then run away feeling pleased with it. 

"Who'd you want me to meet?" They began walking to the parking lot, where Vicious had parked his car. The sun was setting, painting the sky a mirage of oranges and reds and yellows and Vicious wondered where Spike had been the whole day, why he hadn't seen Spike for over five hours, and then he remembered, he had dropped him off at Nyugen's this morning and then he had gone out to run his _errands _for _mother._

"A friend." 

"You have friends?" Spike blinked, mock-incredulous. "I wouldn't have guessed." 

"It's figurative." He opened the door to the driver's seat, and Spike got in next to him. 

"Who is he?" 

"She."

"She?" Spike raised his eyebrows as Vicious started the engine, shifted the car into reverse. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend." 

It was just him, Vicious told himself, when he heard the surprise in Spiegel's voice.

It was just him, Vicious told himself, when he heard the confusion and the tinge of loneliness. It was just _him._ He was the one who was thinking those things, all the time, always, maybe forever. 

And then he laughed at the thought of _her_ being his girlfriend. 

"What's her name?" Came Spike's voice, distantly, and Vicious stopped as they approached the stoplight, as a group of students walked past, two girls, three boys, arm-in-arm, laughing with each other and not sparing anybody else a second glance. 

He glanced over at Spike out of the corner of his eye, let a hint of a smile appear on his lips. 

"Seat belt." 

Spike looked slightly exasperated. "Who is she?" 

"Oh." Vicious said. "She's providing Wolfe with all the provisions. Guns, bullets, small bombs. Her name's Annie." 

~

Annie had taken to Spike right away, more than she had done with Vicious the first time he had met her, which was only a week ago. She hadn't liked his silence, his seemingly brooding personality. He hadn't really cared for her easy smiles, her teasing sarcasm. 

Spike had left in a good mood, one hand in his pocket where he had shoved a box of bullets for his gun, and Vicious had left Annie in that little shop, a seemingly innocent general store, a box labeled "Instant Noodles No. 6" which actually contained hand grenades, behind the cashier's counter. She was reluctant to talk about Wolfe when Spike asked, and they had ended up conversing for twenty minutes on the basketball game from a week ago. 

Spike walked ahead of him like a happy boy at Christmas, his present from Santa Claus tucked away in his pocket, one that he didn't actually deserve. 

Vicious felt the same way as he walked behind him, watched the sun finally go down as the sky darkened and the street lamps turned on, as somebody walked by on the other side of the chain fence and he found that he didn't care at all, because it was only five hours, only five hours, and there were twenty four in the day. 

~ 

__

Please C&C!!! The more reviews I get, the faster I churn out the chapters. I suppose that being so review-hungry is bad for my stomach-brain… but there's incentive behind it. ^_^;; 

What shall happen? Hmm. Introduction to more people we know, I guess. That "opportunity" I mention in the summary will manifest… in more ways than one. XD 

Vicious is going into a little bit of denial. Either that or he isn't recognizing everything fully . . . 


	5. Chinese deal

****

The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. 

****

Radishface

~ 5 ~

It was almost unthinkable, that Vicious had to return _home_, to his own apartment, once he had dropped Spike back off at his own house. Wolfe had told him earlier that day to introduce Spike to Annie, to show him a little more of the ropes. Spike had been around long enough, but up until now, he hadn't been trusted to meet their supplier. Where Annie got the goods, Vicious didn't have any idea about. 

His relationship with Annie, if anyone could call it such, was strictly business. No 'hello' when he entered, no 'goodbye' when he left, no 'thank you' when he received she pulled out unusual boxes from under the counter and handed them to him. Kids were reading pornography in the back shelves, and she had enough on her hands without him trying to make small talk. 

Of course Spike would see it as a different story, as an opportunity to make a new _friend_ of some sort-- Vicious smiled wryly. And now that Spike had gained Annie's favor, he was sure to get free candy now and then. At least Annie wouldn't glare at him if he told her that he lost his new gun. She'd happily replenish him with a few more, no problem. And now Spike was home, probably watching television, even though Vicious told him that Wolfe had told him to tell him that Spike should get some sleep as soon as he could, for a speedy recovery. Spike had shrugged and laughed when he mentioned this. 

Vicious drove the car into the parking lot and got out, not even bothering to look at the form coming out from the shadows. 

"Fuck off." 

"That's not very nice." Wolfe smiled indulgently on him, the street lamp illuminating his bony features. "Did you know more and more people are getting laid off?" 

Vicious snorted, and glared in his general direction. "Is that a threat?" 

"Why would I get rid of _you?_" Wolfe turned and ran a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. "Even if the economy is in a condition similar to that of Earth's." 

"What do you want?" Get to the point. Fucking bastard. 

Wolfe smiled that indulgent smile again, looked like a cat ready to lick its lips and devour a mouse, and Vicious wanted to put a hole through his head. "Did you introduce them?" 

"I follow orders." Vicious replied. 

Wolfe raised an eyebrow. "And if I told you that Spike will be fine now?" 

Vicious stared for a minute, didn't understand. 

"I may reassign him." Wolfe said simply. 

"Reassign him where?" Vicious said, letting a hint of a snarl into his voice despite himself. "I wasn't aware that we had any other factions." 

"Oh, but we do." The gang leader smiled at him, eyes glinting slightly under the light of the street lamp. "As of today, I have signed a contract of cooperation with the recently-deported Chinese syndicate leaders." 

"And _why,_" Vicious said, "would they want to merge with _us_?" 

"You know," Wolfe began, "we have a very admirable reputation for a street gang. Your arrival, coupled with Spike's, has increased our standings in the region. We aren't _just_ the Red Dragons anymore, Vicious. The Chinese are just looking for some lackeys to do their dirty jobs." Wolfe's smile persisted, and he continued. "Your first assignment will be here in the west end, and you'll be dealing with the cocaine branch of the Chinese syndicate." 

"So I'm a delivery boy?" Vicious looked up Wolfe, and the other man laughed. 

"Maybe you'll do deliveries." 

"And Spike?"

"Oh, that's right." His smile grew broader so it almost stretched from ear to ear. "Well, I'm not sure." 

"Are you going to reassign him?" Vicious managed to force his voice into complying, and then the words came out unbidden. 

"I don't know." Wolfe's eyes widened innocently. "I think he'd do very well in the negotiation business. Or does he need to spend more time with you?" 

Vicious refrained from saying _yes_ because Spike was a stupid bastard at times and didn't know what he was doing and had a tendency to get into fights that he didn't initiate and didn't know everything just yet, if only because Vicious hadn't taught him everything yet. But there wasn't anything to learn. When he had first arrived in the Red Dragons, Wolfe had sent him off alone to work. He didn't have the luxury of a guide, he was just the other member, he was just the other--

"Maybe you should ask him." Vicious managed to keep his voice light. 

Wolfe raised an eyebrow and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. 

"No--" Vicious started, and Wolfe looked at him incredulously. "It's too late." 

Wolfe snorted. "I'm sure you know Spike Spiegel's nocturnal habits as well as I do." He dialed a number, and pushed the phone up against Vicious's ear. "I want you to ask him." 

__

Me. Vicious thought to himself. 

The phone rang four times, and then a very grudging voice, slightly raspy, "Yeah, what?" 

Vicious swallowed. "It's me." 

Spike seemed to yawn on the other side of the phone. "Wasn't your number on the ID." 

"I'm using Wolfe's phone." Vicious murmured, and heard Spike laugh. 

"You haven't killed him yet? Surprise, surprise." 

Vicious let himself smile a little. "He just wants to know." And his voice stuck, and Wolfe, who was pacing back and forth in the parking lot, looked at him with an amused eye. 

"Know what?" Spike yawned again. "Hey, you want to come over or something? The girl that stopped by today is a dancer at the Cheetah's. I think you'd like her--" 

Vicious found himself glaring to himself, to something, to somebody, but not at Spike, or Spike's choice of words, and he didn't know how to phrase his next words accordingly. "Listen." He started. 

"What?" 

"Wolfe signed a deal with the Chinese." He said, and his voice dropped to a neutral tone, and it was easier to conceal things that way, easier to hide himself. "He says he wants to assign me to deal with the cocaine dealers in the west end--" 

Spike was laughing on the other end, and Vicious heard a feminine giggle, and he clenched the phone harder in his hand, could feel the sweat on his ear and on the phone. He waited, he listened. He couldn't make out what was being said. 

"Sorry." Spike said, a little out of breath when Vicious heard him next. "Yeah, I heard you. Got a little distracted, that's all. Are you sure you don't want to come over--" 

"No." 

Spike seemed to sense his impatience, and sobered a little. "Right, right. So what is it?" 

"Wolfe wants to assign you somewhere else." He replied evenly. "He wants you to work with their negotiators." 

There was a long pause on the other end, and Vicious suddenly felt very conscious of the skin on his lips-- how they were dry, how his eyelids felt stretched open even though he felt like a weight had been pushed down in his lungs, how scratchy and annoying his hair felt, hanging in his face, how Wolfe was staring at him with a satisfied expression, although what he was trying to prove, Vicious didn't know. 

"Oh." Came Spike's voice at last, and Vicious couldn't make out what emotion was behind it, and then decided vehemently that he wouldn't care. 

"So." He said, and couldn't think of anything to say. 

"That's so fucking gay." 

The words had so many possibilities. "What?" Vicious asked. 

"The... the thing." He could just see Spike gesturing wildly now, unable to make any sense for the time being. He wondered what the girl was seeing, how the girl was reacting to this. "The negotiations." 

Vicious took a breath. "Right." 

"Do I have a goddamned choice?" He was saying, his voice was getting louder, and he was getting angry. And for some reason, Vicious felt absurdly happy. 

"Actually, you _do_." He said, and as soon as the words left his lips, Wolfe was looking at him again, and Spike had suddenly stopped talking. 

"So?" Spike said, after a while. "What's... what are my choices?" 

Vicious turned around so that his back was facing Wolfe, and started walking in the opposite direction, towards the next lamp post. "You can either work in negotiations, or you can join me and deal cocaine." 

Spike laughed. "I'll deal fucking cocaine with you anytime." 

"That's--" 

"I mean." Spike hesitated, "if it's all right with you." 

"Spike," he started, "you _know--_" and then he stopped, because he was going to say too much, and Wolfe had followed him and was looking, inquisitive, at him. 

"What?" 

"Never mind." 

"All right." Spike said, and Vicious could hear the woman's voice again, this time hushed, and he could hear them in their murmured voices, and then laughs. "Hey, Vicious." Spike said. "Are you sure you don't want to come over? Stupid bitch was listening on the other phone. She thinks your voice is sexy." 

Vicious stared straight ahead of him, ignored Wolfe behind him. "No." 

"Then I'll see you tomorrow." 

"All right." He said, quietly. 

"Vicious--" 

"What?" 

"I-- I don't know." He could hear Spike there on the other end, closed his eyes, and tried to picture himself there. "I guess I'm just glad that I don't have to work with negotiation. What the fuck gave Wolfe _that_ idea?" 

Vicious smiled. "I have no idea." 

"But yeah." Spike's voice was hesitant on the other end. "God, this is so gay. Maybe I'll just say it." 

"Why don't you?" His voice was controlled. He kept it that way. 

"I like working with you." Spike's voice was light, and he laughed, and Vicious lifted his gaze to the sky, which was a dark canvas, littered with specks of white and silver paint, and Wolfe was watching him, watching all of his reactions, and Spike was talking to him from across the city, and he wondered why this was happening. "I don't think I'd get along with anybody else." 

Vicious was about to say something when Spike hung up. The stupid fucker always had to have the last word, didn't he? 

He closed up the phone and handed it to Wolfe without looking at the other man. 

"I can't read your expression." Wolfe said, tucking the phone into his pocket, and standing back from Vicious, contemplating. "Either you should be ecstatic or completely devastated." 

"Why?" He asked, and it wasn't really a question, just filler. He wanted to go back to his apartment. He wanted to go to sleep, crawl under his covers or over them, and lie awake for a few hours. 

"No reason." Wolfe shrugged. "So I guess he volunteered to stay with you, and I'll have to deal with my two best men working in one region while everybody else screws every other branch up." 

"I guess you will." 

"Good night, Vicious." Wolfe said, and headed back towards his car. 

~

Liked it? Hated it? Tell me what you think! C&C always cheers me up and makes me write more. ^_^ In the next chapter, Spike and Vicious meet some pretty major side-characters who are working for the Chinese. Just guess who. They're really cute, and their names rhyme. 


	6. Empty Spaces

****

The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. 

****

Radishface

~ 6 ~

Days passed, and there was no call from Wolfe alerting Vicious of the plans for relocation. 

He hadn't talked to Spike in the last few days either. 

Vicious had spent his last few days trying to get a hold of him. He had called the morning after the new location arrangements were made, and had gotten Spike's answering machine. He had then tried the cell phone, but he got the machine as well. And after the first few tries, a little pang of worry had started up in the back of his head, nagging at him to go check up on Spike, see what he was doing, because Spike wouldn't mind, had never minded, when Vicious dropped by for the occasional visit. 

But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Going to visit Spike would mean providing a reason for doing so. 

He didn't _have _a reason. 

So he was left smoking a pack a day for three days, waiting for either Wolfe or Spike to call him and tell him what to do, and then one evening, his phone rang. 

"Vicious." 

"Wolfe." He said, sinking back onto his couch, rubbing at his temples. "What took you so long?" He didn't have the energy to yell at the man, because all that energy had been expended on pacing back and forth in his kitchen, thinking about who Spike was with now, why the hell he was wasting his time with women when he should have been inquiring as to what his new position was. 

"I had business to attend to." Wolfe said, his voice cool on the other side of the phone. "There were transactions to make." 

"We don't own anything." Vicious said. "It couldn't have taken you more than an hour to sign any papers." 

"What I told you about that night was purely tentative." Wolfe said. "I was asking for your opinion on where you wanted to be placed, and I worked that into the deal. If I hadn't asked you, they would have gone ahead and made the changes, and then where would you be?" 

"I didn't ask for your help." 

"I'm looking out for my own interests." Wolfe said. "They just happened to coincide with yours." 

Vicious knew exactly what Wolfe's _interests_ were, but didn't voice his thoughts. "How fortunate for me, then." 

"Listen, Vicious." The man's voice had grown softer, more coaxing. "I need you to cooperate with me. The papers I signed were joint transactions. We can move some of our members into one of their buildings now. I need you to go and finish negotiating with their men before everything is finished." 

"Negotiating?" Vicious felt like laughing. "That's not my high point, Wolfe." 

"I wouldn't doubt it." Wolfe's voice was slightly patronizing, and Vicious gritted his teeth. "But you might as well bring Spike along with you. He's congenial enough." 

"All right." Vicious said, his voice controlled. "Who is it we're supposed to meet?" 

"The Chinese are sending their treasured houseboys." Vicious could see Wolfe's smirk. "Shin and Lin. You'll meet at the Regent at five in the afternoon the day after tomorrow. It's a dinner occasion, so mind your manners." 

Wolfe hung up. 

~

When Vicious woke up the next day, he decided to go to the library. He drove himself there, keenly feeling the absence of a certain annoying fluff-head, and dismissed the thoughts before he could think about them any more. 

He got out of the car, feeling slightly groggy, and stumbled his way up the steps into the formidable building. It was the city's central database for information, trivial and important, and also served as an underground gathering for gangsters who didn't want to look conspicuous. But that wasn't the reason Vicious was here-- he needed to brush up on his basic _formal dining_ skills. 

But it was familiar to him, after all, since he had grown up in his father's household. That didn't mean he was invited to his father's nightly gatherings, it just meant he went to a moderately decent private school and was taught all the manners a gentleman of his social stature should have. Always start on the outside and work your way in. 

That wasn't just a rule for silverware.

He was lying to himself, he thought, putting the book away on the shelf as he spotted two women and one man, sitting on the armchairs, conversing quietly among themselves, laughing in hushed voices. The books, the manners, the dining experience. It didn't mean anything. But the thing that meant _something_ wasn't here anyway, so what was he supposed to do?

"Oh, Vicious." 

He wondered when he started to think about things differently, and cursed at himself, while smiling to the woman who had risen out of her chair. "Lisa." He acknowledged, his hand shifting uncertainly to a pocket, rubbing the fabric inside. "How are you?" 

"I'm fine." She smiled, revealing a mouth of perfect white teeth. "Haven't seen you in a while, though." 

He looked at her, her blonde hair, her fair complexion, and wondered if it was her day off. "I've been busy." He said. "I could use a break." 

Her lips quirked up slightly, and she put a hand on his arm. "So I see." Raising her voice a bit, she turned to the other women, who were staring at him in polite indifference. "Have you met Adrienne and Eddie?" 

Adrienne's dry red curls hanging limply down the sides of her face, as if she had just washed her hair, and she had a ridiculous amount of mascara on. Eddie was lanky and tall, with a shock of dark hair and light skin, and he slouched confidently in his chair, if a person could do such a thing.

"My pleasure." He said, mustering a ceremonial smile. 

"It's nice to meet you." Adrienne said, the same time Eddie said, "I don't think he has." 

"Adrienne's works upstairs in the offices, so Eddie and I thought we'd come and visit her during her break." Lisa said conversationally, and linked his arm in hers. "Addy, don't think me rude, but Vicious and I have some catching up to do, and I'm sure you have to get back to work soon." She squeezed his arm for emphasis, but only Vicious noticed it, of course. 

They left, walking through the shelves, arm in arm, and behind him, Vicious thought he heard Eddie whistle, and high-pitched laughter, probably coming from the other woman. 

"Oh, don't mind him." She said, holding a smile back. "He's one of _those_." 

"One of those..." Vicious trailed off blankly, and she turned to look at him as he squinted when they stepped out of the building and into the sun. Damn, it was bright. 

"He's gay." She said, quickening her pace. "And he's busy all the time, just like you." He decided not to inquire further. 

He nodded. "Is it your day off?" 

She mock-glared at him and laughed. "I don't _have_ off days." She shook her head. "And I can see it, you don't have to say it. Yes, Adrienne and Eddie are in the _business_ as well." 

"So why were you at the library?" Vicious felt himself smile, and heard himself say somewhere, _no, you're supposed to be angry, you know you're angry, why forget about it when it means so much to you? _

Lisa scoffed and playfully punched him on the arm. "You're not one to pretend we're a real couple, are you? You're so inconsiderate, never thinking about how the lady might feel about all these one-night stands." She smiled, though, and looked at her nails. "When am I going to meet your little friend, anyway?" 

Vicious raised an eyebrow. 

"Spike?" Her brow furrowed in thought. "I think that was his name." 

Vicious looked off across the street. "He... I don't know." 

Vicious was trying to remember what he said about Spike after his sessions with her, when they were sitting in his bed and she was talking, and he was seeing her through a haze of smoke, a cigarette held loosely between her fingers. She was doing her duty as usual, trying to help out a couple friends of hers within their community, casually asking, _do you have any friends? _which meant, of course, _do you have any friends we can fuck with?_ and he hadn't been too alert, his mind still in the recesses of finished sex, and he had said something, _Spike._

__

Oh, she had said, a light of business-like interest in her eyes. _What's he like?_

Vicious had chuckled quietly to himself. _He's a little bitch. _And he had taken a long drag on his cigarette, because Spike liked to do the same thing, and smoking cigarettes reminded him of Spike, with his nonchalance and his carefree arrogance. 

He wondered what he would have said if Spike had asked him a question, _what am I to you?_

His hand would still be holding the cigarette, it'd probably be a column of ash, falling on the bedspread. He'd be clothed, of course, and Spike would only be visiting, and for some reason, they would have been in his room and Vicious would have been on the bed, maybe they were drinking, talking, smoking. And Spike would ask him something about friends and Vicious wouldn't smoke his cigarette because he only did that when he wanted to remind himself of Spike, and Spike was already there. 

He didn't know what he'd say. 

~ 

Afterwards, Lisa had left, he had paid her, and he was in this room, some room he didn't know, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his thumb stroking absently over the rough material of the sheets. 

If he had made Lisa stay, he could have called Spike, and if Spike had picked up the phone, he would have heard them. 

Spike wouldn't feel anything, though. 

Vicious shut his eyes and he bit down on the cigarette in his mouth.

~

He arrived in the lobby of the Regent fifteen minutes before five and when he saw Spike was already there, sitting on one of the couches, flipping through a magazine. He was dressed a little better than usual, his pants pressed, his dress shirt tucked in, his tie knotted, his jacket draped over the arm of the couch. When he saw Vicious, he grinned, and stood up. 

"So, was she a virgin?" 

Spike's smile faded. "What?" 

Vicious kept a smile on his face, but his voice was icy, and he didn't want it to be that way. Why should he care? It was Spike's life, and Spike's affairs, and Spike's bed partner, and he shouldn't care if she was a university graduate or an air-headed bitch who was instantaneously attracted to Spike's easy charms and his relaxed demeanor and his fuzzy, uncombed hair.

But he did. 

"She must have been a virgin more than once if she kept you occupied for so long." 

Spike's brow furrowed and Vicious noticed the way his lips quirked, the way his eyelashes looked, smudged against his cheeks as Spike closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. 

"I know you were trying to call me." He said, sounding apologetic. "But my phone was out of order, and my cell was in the shop--"

"Your answering machine was on." Vicious said, surprised at the accusing tone in his voice. 

Spike scratched his head and grinned sheepishly. "The receiver wasn't in commission, then. And you know how I hate that machine." 

__

Of course, Vicious thought. _I know you hate answering machines, when you could have the real voice, the real thing. You're alive like that. You don't want to communicate with a machine or an automated voice-- that's just how you are._

"I'm sorry about it." Spike continued. "Wolfe stopped by to tell me about this meeting, though." 

__

Wolfe stopped by to-- "What?" Vicious ground his teeth so hard he thought they would crack. 

"I made him stay in the kitchen so he couldn't see the mess in my room." Spike grinned. "You wouldn't believe what I did with that girl." He looked like he was going to say more, but didn't. 

Vicious seated himself on the couch Spike had vacated and watched as Spike sat in the armchair across from him. "And no, he didn't." He was running a hand through his unruly hair, and Vicious watched his face, his expression. 

"Who didn't?" He said wryly, but his throat felt constricted, and forced a smile onto his face, one of good humor. It looked completely out of character, but Spike was looking at the ceiling, squinting at the chandelier, and didn't see it. 

"Wolfe didn't." Spike said. "I mean, he didn't try anything."

Vicious knew that would be the answer, but hearing it from Spike somewhat reassured him, even if Spike tended to undermine Wolfe's double-laced comments when they were aimed at him.

"They're here." Vicious said, as the doors opened and two young men walked in. They were about the same height, same stature. Spike snapped out of his reverie and glanced at them. Vicious stood up. 

"Vicious--" Spike said, not quite looking at him. "Look, I'm sorry." 

He forced a tight smile on his face and hoped that it looked forgiving enough, even though he didn't know who needed to be forgiven, who needed to repent. "It's all right." 

"I mean--" Spike started again, sticking his hands into his pockets, throwing a hurried glance over his shoulder at Lin and Shin, who were walking towards them. "If you had something to tell me, you could have just dropped by." 

His voice held a note of hurt, and it was as if he had _expected_ Vicious to come visit him when his phone wasn't working to complain about Wolfe, to wonder about their new assignments, to anticipate their first meeting with the Chinese, to tell him about why he had wasted his afternoon fucking Lisa when he could have been talking with _Spike._

But what could I tell you? Vicious thought as he looked at Spike, wanted to look at his eyes, and didn't want to. 

__

What reason could I give you?

Brown eyes looked up to meet his grey ones and Vicious wanted to say _I forgive you, you know that, and I was never really angry about anything, just my mind fucking around with me, playing games, and if I give into them then we might have to work separately, I might have to leave you, and then you might-- I might--_

"Excuse me." A voice said, and Vicious shook himself out of it.

"I am Yeung Shin-Zhou." The man with the longer haircut introduced himself to them. "And this is my brother, Lin-Huang."

Spike held Vicious' eyes for a second longer and then turned around, a smile on his face, and it seemed like nothing was wrong. 

"Yeah, we've heard of you."

~

The dinner had gone smoothly enough. Spike had managed to make the conversation light-hearted, while Vicious addressed the more serious issues with Yeung Shin-Zhou.

__

Please, call me Shin.

Shin had explained the system they had in the syndicate, how assignments would be run, how the black market trade would go. Spike sat across from him, and was conversing animatedly with Lin, and they laughed every once in a while, causing Vicious to be distracted momentarily. 

__

The Elders are very interested in Red Eye, Shin had said. _Not only would this steroid be a voluble asset to our own syndicate, but would also be a very profitable substance to gain a hold of internationally. The Elders already have already bought stock in NeuroSyntax, the cover company that produces Red Eye underground on Earth._

Vicious had been watching Spike when he was saying this. He knew how much Spike disapproved of using it, how they both tried to stay away from it as often as possible, choosing other alternatives. Spike considered the substance as an insult to his ability, thought of it as a shame upon the arts of combat. 

One time Vicious had used it, and Spike had ended up having to carry him home. 

__

We know you'll be working in our narcotics division. Shin had said, picking at his food with his silverware. _But we've heard of your capabilities from your superior, and it is my guess that the Elders will not waste your abilities in that department. Your superior does not know of our plans yet, and it is my advice to you that you do not relay this personal information to him._

Spike was signaling the waitress for dessert, Vicious realized, and as she approached the table, he saw him lean in and whisper in her ear, making her blush. Spike was laughing, Lin was chuckling to himself, looking slightly amused, and the waitress scurried off. Vicious' hands were twisting the tablecloth, out of sight, and Shin didn't notice this. 

__

We were also known as the Red Dragons back on Earth, before we moved our location here. Shin was saying. _We still have many assets back there, but it is in our interests to obtain favorable mergers here on Mars. It is a strange coincidence that your group is also known as the Red Dragons, and perhaps that is why the Elders sought you out. You have a formidable reputation._

When Spike dropped his fork, Lin picked it up for him.

~

Ack! There shall be more to come, as soon as I can get them out! Sorry for the wait-- I have recently been exploring other fandoms, and have sadly neglected this for a bit. 

As for the -In Brothers… I have plans for them. They're much too sexy to resist. Here they only get a little part… but there will be more. ^_^ 

Poor little Vicious. Pining away for Spike, are we? Shag! Screw! Sleep with each other! _ Unfortunately, story developments are priority. But they will, I promise. Until next time, then.


	7. Lift the Veil

****

The Symphony Hall

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-somethings Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations. 

****

Radishface

~ 7 ~

"So, what'd you think?" 

Vicious let his eyes wander to the light up ahead, to the park bench illuminated beside it. "Of what?" 

"The brothers. The Red Dragons." 

Vicious shrugged, let his shoulders roll as if they were used to this form of dismissal. His movements weren't as practiced as Spike's. "There wasn't anything to think about. It's a decision that's been made for us by Wolfe." 

"So you don't want to work with them?" Spike stopped walking, stood there, swaying a bit. Vicious made a note to himself to not comment on the state of Spike's continually emptying wine glass when they were having dinner, and chose not to say anything about it now. 

"I didn't say that." 

"I don't see why you didn't enjoy the dinner. It was free." 

"And you nearly compromised our reputation." 

"What?" Spike's eyes widened, and Vicious looked away, pressing his lips. "And what the fuck did _I_ do?"

"It was _business,_ Spike." Vicious managed to grit out. _And there you were, dropping your forks, getting drunk on expensive wine, flirting with the waitress, flirting with Yeung--_

Vicious stared straight ahead, trying to dismiss the thought. 

To his surprise, Spike laughed. "If I recall _correctly_, it was Wolfe who told me to come along with you to brighten the mood. Maybe it didn't occur to you to appreciate my charms." 

__

Yes, he did say that. Or something like it.

"Yeung Lin-Huang seemed to like you well enough." 

Spike squinted. "Who?" 

Vicious sighed. "_Lin_." 

Spike grinned. "Nice guy." 

There was a pause. "I'm sure."

Vicious didn't know what deals Wolfe wanted them to negotiate. Shin had told him about the plans of the Red Dragons, their plots for financial and underworld conquest, masked in economic and diplomatic terms. 

Spike had spent the entire evening making himself look like a brainless individual, much to Lin's amusement. It had supposedly reduced tension that was prone to be there, but Vicious felt even more strained than he had before the dinner, with knots in his shoulders and heavy thoughts in his head, trying to tell him to relax, since there was nothing to be stressed about. 

One glance at the man beside him, and he could hear himself groan at his own ignorance. Vicious scowled. 

"Well, it's nothing different, you know." Spike said, his words running together. "It won't be too different, once we're working with them--" 

"What?" Vicious turned around, and Spike gave him a confused glance. 

"We're going to be working with them, yeah." He said, and grinned. "I think Lin said something about that. Didn't your own Chinese friend tell you something?" 

"No, he didn't mention anything like that." 

"I must have gotten the inside part of it, then." Spike winked at him. "You see, being amenable is helpful in situations like this. I already know something you don't know, and you know what the saying is." 

"I think you mean _amiable_."

"Huh?" Spike was looking confused again. 

"You said _amenable._" 

"Right." 

And then Spike tripped, and Vicious instinctively reached out to steady him. Spike's face pressed into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and Spike's hands fell to his sides, and Vicious smelled the faint scent of shampoo, mixed with aftershave, cologne, cigarette smoke, and wine. 

"Spike." Vicious said, his hands still on Spike's shoulder, for some reason, reluctant to leave the position. 

"What?" Spike's voice was muffled, and Vicious could feel the outline of his nose, his lips a smile as he muttered the words. 

"You want to sit down?" 

"Not really." 

He felt his face flush, and shook the standing form a little, just to get Spike's attention. "You're going to fall over. I thought you had more alcohol tolerance than that." 

"Did you have any?" 

"What?" 

"Have any. Dom Perignon. Whatever it was." 

"No." Vicious felt a smile on his face, and steered Spike over to the bench under the street light. "Somebody has to drive back." 

"I drove." 

"You can't drive now." Vicious said pointedly, and then frowned. "When'd you get a car?" 

"The one we stole from the lady. Down the street." Spike yawned, and Vicious sat down beside him. "She's dead, remember?" 

"You idiot." Vicious chuckled, suddenly feeling at peace, the chirping of crickets echoing distantly in the background, and he wondered where the hell they were, and why he was in some deserted public park with a drunken Spike sitting next to him, droning on about a car that he didn't own. "_I'm_ driving that car." 

"Oh." Spike said, without missing a beat. "Then I wonder how I got here."

"Did you take the bus?" 

"Might have taken the subway." 

"There we go." Vicious felt like he was talking to a little kid, a little kid who was scared of getting the answer wrong, and he had to be the one to do the reassuring. Spike's head leaned against his shoulder, and although Vicious tensed, he didn't pull away.

"So." Spike started, and then there was silence. 

"You can't fall asleep like that." 

The fuzzy-haired man lifted his head and looked at Vicious with bleary eyes. "I can't?" 

"It'll be shit on your neck." Vicious said, and found that he really couldn't say anymore, that it took a huge effort just to say that.

"Oh. I thought you were going to say--" Spike dropped his head back on Vicious's shoulder, "--that you didn't want me puking all over your coat or something."

"That too." 

"Fuck it, Vicious." Spike smiled, grinning into Vicious's coat. "Selfish bastard." 

"Pot calling the cocaine black." 

"Hypocrite." 

"I never said I wasn't." 

Silence, and the crickets, and a car, somewhere in the distance. 

"So how much did you drink?" Spike asked, his voice seemingly out of place in the quiet. 

Vicious looked down at the fuzzy head by his shoulder, and chuckled. "You're losing it, Spike. I just told you I didn't have any." 

"You're different now." 

"How?" Vicious said, and felt the apprehension pulsing in his chest, and told it to shut up otherwise he'd take it down with an M-16. 

"Nicer, for one. You're listening to me." 

"When don't I listen to you?" Vicious said, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. He might have had something to drink, maybe just a sip. He didn't like wine, he didn't like alcohol, he didn't like anything that could distort his view of reality. 

"Did you accept my apology?" Spike muttered, and Vicious stared at him, wanted to haul him up and look at him in the eyes, know that it was because he was drunk that he was saying these things. 

"I--"

"Never mind." Spike said, yawning. "I'm such a fucking idiot. I didn't even apologize. Never mind. Just forget what I said." 

"Why don't you just apologize now?" Vicious said carefully, suddenly feeling how Spike's weight was on him, how he was his support. 

"All right." Spike said, and Vicious could hear the grin. "Vicious, do you forgive me? I was a bastard, and I don't know why I didn't drop by your apartment when my phone wasn't working."

"You had that girl over." He replied lightly. 

"Not all of the time." Spike muttered. "And it wasn't just for the Red Dragons either, you know?" 

"What about them?" 

"Maybe some of it was." Spike admitted. "I thought that Wolfe had reassigned you or something, and that was why you didn't come over, and so I was going to go do it myself, but--" 

"Do what yourself?" 

Spike made an indistinct motion with his hands. "You know. Come over. Talk, or something. Have a cigarette or two. You don't usually smoke." 

"I don't." 

"But you must have kept yourself entertained." Spike said, and Vicious heard the bitterness in the tone, the ambiguous quality to it. "What was her name? Lisa? You always go to her, don't you?" 

"What about her?" Vicious said, and all he could do was whisper it, because his throat had gone dry. 

"Nothing. Just wondering why you can sleep with them and I can't, and when I do, you piss off on me." Spike lifted his head up, looked at Vicious in the eye, even though he couldn't hold the gaze.

"I didn't--" 

"You didn't _what?_ Sleep with her? I knew you slept with _somebody,_ you came in today for dinner and you looked like it. You don't think I don't know what you look like after you've done it? I can tell for days after you've done it, and whether you liked it or not." 

"Damn it, Spike." Vicious said, and drew out a cigarette, and managed to light one after four tries. 

He drew a shaky breath, inhaling the smoke, and the light flickered above him, and although Spike looked up to see it, Vicious kept looking down at his hands, didn't pay attention to it. 

"You're doing it again." 

"What?" Vicious asked, and Spike was watching him.

"You're biting on it." 

Vicious took the cigarette out of his mouth and studied it for a moment. 

__

And do you know why I do it? He asked himself, noting the frayed edges of the cigarette paper. _It's a bad habit. I do it when I'm thinking about you._

Vicious put the cigarette out on the bench and threw it on the ground, watching the ashes blow away. 

"That's right." Spike said suddenly, and Vicious turned to look at him. Spike's gaze was fixated on the cigarette, the one on the ground, and when Vicious crushed it under his heel, Spike's eyes turned to look up at him. 

"What's right?" Vicious said, and he felt the tension in his voice, there for no reason at all. 

"I remember." Spike laughed. "Wolfe drove me here. He's supposed to pick me up." 

Vicious looked at him for a moment longer, and then stood up, ignoring Spike's confusion, and turned briskly towards him. 

"Let's go." 

"What--"

"It's late, and you're drunk, and Wolfe's probably waiting for you." 

"I'm not drunk." Spike protested. "I'm just past my legal blood-alcohol-concentration level."

"_Spike._" Vicious said, and it left no room for argument. 

He walked on ahead, about five yards ahead of Spike, his hands shoved in his pockets, his teeth clenched together. He didn't care that Spike was lagging behind, was trying to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to figure out what was wrong, what _went_ wrong, and Vicious couldn't figure it out either. 

__

Damn it damn it damn it, he heard Spike say, and he increased his pace, ignoring the man behind him. 

"Vicious." He heard, and he turned around, only because he was obligated to. 

"What?" He said. 

"Why--"

Vicious couldn't help it when his legs seemed to walk on their own, when they walked towards Spike, who was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, biting his lip, as if he didn't know what to say.

"What?" Vicious snapped, glad for the dark, glad that Spike couldn't see how tense he was.

"Just drive me home." Spike said.

Vicious looked up. "Wolfe is--"

"I don't care." Spike shook his head, stumbling a bit. "He's not my fucking chauffer." 

"You'll get in trouble." Vicious said, and it was like somebody else was saying it, some other voice, and he seemed very distant. 

"I'll explain it to him." Spike said, a familiar grin appearing on his face as he looked at Vicious. "I'll tell him I got drunk and I didn't remember and so you had to take me back." 

"Yeah." Vicious said, his voice tight, and they started again for the hotel, Spike standing close to him because he was drunk, Spike standing close to him so that their shoulders brushed when they walked.

~

'Aight… that was a big "moment" for them. Somewhat _ Yeesh, this is taking a while. 

Anyway… as one can tell, there is this unresolved issue of Mr. Wolfe between Spike and Vicious (and a lot of other stuff, too… ehehe.) Eventually it will be solved, and Lin and Shin will play parts, and stuff will happen. Annie is going to be my plot device… so… WAHAHA. 

Spike is going to get in trouble, not for this little thing, but something else. And then after that, stuff starts to reveal itself… and while the shagging and screwing demands to be written, I still have to make it agree with the general Cowboy Bebop scheme of things. Why didn't I just label this AU and take the easy way out?? Stupid OOC restrictions. 

Okay, so I'm rambling. Reviews are appreciated, even begged for. ^_^;; Ehe.


	8. Establishment

**The Symphony Hall**

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations.

A/N: Sorry it's taken me SO LONG to put out this chapter! RL has just been all-omnipotent... But here it is! And everything's been planned out— and the story won't _just _be Spike/Vicious-centric. =3 Stay tuned!

**Radishface**

8

Spike was not completely intoxicated, Vicious realized, just a little tipsy. But Spike had held onto him this whole time, the other man's calloused fingers gripping onto Vicious' coat as they walked to the car.

When they arrived back at Spike's apartment, the other man was asleep, an eerie look of discontent over his features, eyebrows knit in a frown, and Vicious didn't want to wake him up. Would it be so difficult, he thought, if he just drove to the airport, bought tickets, and left?

Spike's face was inclined towards him, and Vicious thought, _would it be so difficult?_

His cell phone rang, jolting him out of his reverie. He dug it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID-- Wolfe.

"What?" He snapped.

"I was just wondering--" A familiar voice drawled, "-- if you had brought him home?"

"Spike's here with me." Vicious said. "But from what I heard, you were the one who was supposed to pick him up."

"I predicted your actions." Wolfe said, and Vicious could just _see_ the man smirking on the other end. "I knew that you'd take care of him."

"So what if I hadn't?" Vicious retorted. "What if I had just left him there?"

"You wouldn't." Wolfe said, and Vicious seethed. "It's late."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean--"

"_I_ would conduct business--" Wolfe paused. "--if I were you. Goodnight."

He had put Spike to bed, taking off the other man's jacket, then the shoes, and had left it at that. Spike had murmured a sleepy _thank you_ and had rolled over on his side, facing away from Vicious. Moonlight streamed in through the blinds, and Vicious wondered at how the room could look so much more different without a girl curled up around Spike.

Annie's shop was still open at midnight, or maybe she was just cleaning-- Vicious couldn't care less. He walked in, ignored the burglar alarm, and watched as Annie's plump form jumped three feet in the air, watched her flail to turn the alarm off. Upon noticing it was Vicious, she gave a scowl and returned to her work.

"What are you doing, Annie?" He said.

"Sorting things." She replied. "It's none of your business. And don't barge in here like that."

"I need ammunition."

"I already gave you some last week."

"That was last week, Annie."

"There hasn't even been any sort of activity in the area." She narrowed her eyes at him, then smirked. "Unless the ammo is for the new kid."

Vicious smiled as well, showed her a little teeth. "He's not that new, you know."

"Somebody always has to be the new kid." Annie said, and slammed a box of ammunition onto the counter. "How much does that trigger-happy kid need?" She shook her head. "Nice kid like that, always hanging around people like you. Makes me wonder--"

"Annie." He said quietly, dangerously. "You're not so far removed from all of this either."

"Take what you want." She said. "And then get out."

Annie's store was owned by Wolfe, who had been a loan shark before he became the boss of the Red Dragons. She did this for them because it was her obligation, and Wolfe held her contract. It was dangerous, being their weapons supplier, and Annie had no choice but to do it. She was not married, she did not have children, and it wouldn't have mattered to Wolfe, either way.

"You hang around that kid too much." Annie said, and Vicious looked up at her, a bitter smile on her face. "Why don't you let him go? Wolfe is small fry. Just let him--"

He wouldn't threaten her, and she knew that he wouldn't threaten her, that he wouldn't tell Wolfe about their dissatisfied weapons distributor who wanted a life of her own. But this was his life, and he had inadvertently chosen it, he was a Red Dragon.

Spike had chosen it too, had gotten himself into this mess on his own will, and that made him no more deserving of freedom than any other syndicate member.

_But that doesn't mean--_

"Annie." He said, his tone final. "Goodnight."

Perhaps this was the only time he'd ever agree with her.

He had Lisa over that night, and Vicious knew that he'd be receiving a phone call from the concierge in the morning.

He'd left the money on the nightstand, but she didn't move to take it.

"You're such a great-looking guy." She said absently, rubbing his back. "I don't see why you need to pay _anybody_ to sleep with you.

"Maybe I should just ignore you the next time you call." She laughed. "Give you an opportunity for happiness. But then again," she kissed the back of his neck, "you _are_ my best customer."

This was easy, Vicious thought, as he turned around to look at her, look at her tired face, resigned to the fact that she was a prostitute, that she'd be trapped in that life forever. And he thought, this is easy, because it's business between the two of us, and I can learn a little from you, how to distance myself from everything, how to detach myself from who I am, who I really want to be.

It was late in the afternoon, a week later, when Wolfe called him. Vicious had been smoking again, a habit that was growing on him. He had assumed that if he were going to be an addict, Spike's image in his head would become a secondary thing.

It hadn't.

"The fuckers want to speak with you tonight." The familiar voice said. "You'd better go meet them. Same place, same time."

"Who the fuck are you talking about?" Vicious spat, throwing the cigarette butt into the ashtray on the coffee table. He missed.

"The Chinese." Wolfe said. Vicious sat up, waving off the smoky haze that had settled around his head. Their gang leader sounded frustrated, an emotion of which Vicious had assumed he wasn't capable. "It'll be your last time."

"What makes you say that?" Vicious said, standing up, heading for his bedroom. The scent of cigarettes was so deeply ingrained in all his clothing-- he had nothing to wear. Fuck.

"Your last time alone." Wolfe said, his voice suspiciously calm again, and Vicious gripped the phone tighter, as if that would choke the answers out of Wolfe. "That's what I meant."

"Spike isn't going?"

"He could tag along, if that's what you wanted." Vicious could hear the smirk in the other man's voice.

"I'm fine." He said, curtly. "The Regent hotel."

"Have fun. And another thing--"

Vicious waited.

"Report back to me tomorrow morning at nine. I'll see you at Annie's."

Wolfe hung up, and Vicious threw the phone down on his bed. The suit that he had worn the other day was at the cleaners, and he didn't have an iron. He could ask Spike for a change of clothes, but Spike's own wardrobe was probably spread out across the expanse of his apartment as well.

Vicious had just come out of the shower, a towel slung around his hips, when the doorbell rang.

He opened the door to find Spike standing there, dressed in a dress shirt and pressed slacks, a tie thrown haphazardly over his shoulder, as if he had rushed out in a hurry. Before Vicious could say anything, something was being shoved in his face.

"Special delivery." Spike pushed the plastic-wrapped bundle in his arms, and pushed past Vicious into the apartment. Vicious closed the door and inspected the thing Spike had given him-- it was his suit. He glanced up in surprise, and Spike shook his head.

"We have a double date again. I did you a favor picked it up from the cleaners."

_But Wolfe had told him--_ Vicious shook his head. "I thought I was going alone."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Didn't they tell you I was coming?"

"I got a phone call from Wolfe." Vicious unwrapped the suit from the plastic, laid it out on his couch.

"He told you this was a solitary assignment?"

"I was under that impression."

Spike shrugged. "Wolfe probably doesn't know I'm going, then. But Lin called--"

Vicious held his breath, and waited for Spike to go on.

"--he said that he and Shin have something to tell us." Spike grinned, and turned around, wandering into the kitchen. "You know the rule of the second date. Secrets, base one."

"I thought you didn't date, Spike."

"It all depends on your definition of the word." Spike retorted. "Going on one of the meanings, I think I've been dating for a fucking while."

Vicious wondered what the _hell _that was supposed to mean.

A few hours later, at the Regent, seated in a booth near the back of the restaurant, Vicious was mulling over his Chardonnay and Spike was pushing his unfinished steak around his plate.

Apparently, the Yeung brothers had left a few things out during their introductory meeting. Then again, Vicious thought, that was to be expected. But what Vicious hadn't expected was the speed at which the Chinese were proceeding with the merger deal. Perhaps Wolfe had been more willing to compromise than he had thought.

Maybe they had bypassed Wolfe altogether. That was certainly a possibility.

The Red Dragons of Mars had no ultimate plan for economic or political control. Wolfe seemed perfectly content with his rent boys and rent girls, the nightclub that he co-owned, the few corrupt police officials he'd managed to become friends with. The way the Chinese saw it, and the way the Yeung brothers had described, there was a great deal of potential within their small organization, but Wolfe didn't seem to have any aspirations. The Yeung brothers had met Wolfe once, and when the Elders analyzed their reports of the man, had decided that if progression and annexation of their organization were in the near future, then perhaps Wolfe would not be assimilated into the new faction of the Red Dragons.

"It is a coincidence that you shared the same name as our age-old clan." Shin smiled. "Perhaps it was out of curiosity that the Elders decided to investigate your organization."

"And exactly how far--" Vicious interrupted, leaning in to look Shin in the eye. "--does your clan operate?"

Lin sat back, folding his napkin and placing it on the arm of his chair. "That was one of the things we were going to discuss tonight." He cleared his throat. "The Red Dragons is not merely an operation based in China. We exert a considerable amount of political and economic control over most of Southeast Asia."

Spike whistled. "The whole eastern hemisphere. Impressive."

Lin smiled. "The Yeung clan-- our family-- is based in Hong Kong. There are other families as well-- notably the Xing collective, stationed in Beijing, and the Mao clan, located in Taiwan."

"And your elders?"

"They are actually located at a base on Io, and switch their base between one on Io and one on Jupiter. The Elders have somehow managed to operate and guide all the clans even with something like the asteroid belt in the way--" Shin paused, "--which is why, I think, that the Elders are looking forward to expanding onto Mars. Again, we wanted to merge with your organization because it is already quite established within this locality."

"The only reason we can tell you these things is because the Elders have already made their decision." Lin said. "We are almost ninety-nine percent sure that we will annex your organization and make it a division of our syndicate."

"Has Wolfe agreed to this?" Vicious asked.

"The man--" Lin sipped his wine, "--is not to be bothered, on our orders."

"Not to be bothered, or not bothered with?" Spike shook his head.

Lin smiled distantly. "Both."

Spike looked at Vicious, eyes stormy and pained, and they seemed to say, _Wolfe put his fucking heart out on the line for this, for _our_ Red Dragons. He's a bastard, but he worked for it. Where the hell do our loyalties lie?_

Vicious wanted to say, _I put my fucking heart out on the line for this, for this thing I can't name. I'll never get it, no matter how much I work for it. My fucking loyalties are with you, Spike Spiegel._

Spike looked away the moment Vicious finished the thought, and Vicious wondered if divine fate had planned this cosmic irony.

"At any rate," Shin stood up, and Lin followed suit. "We should be going. It's getting late."

"And--" Lin pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it in Vicious' direction. "--this is for you. From the Elders."

Vicious looked at it, Spike looked at it from the corner of his eye.

It was a cell phone.

"We'll be calling you." Lin said, and extended his hand. "Spike. Vicious. Good night."

"I'm telling you, man. Wolfe fuckin' bugged your phone."

They were walking back to the parking lot, and it felt much like the other week when they had been walking, except Spike wasn't leaning against his shoulder for support, Spike wasn't drunk like he had been the other week.

"I wouldn't put it past him." Vicious said.

"That's why you didn't hear about tonight." Spike said, folding his arms behind his head, lips turned downward in a pout. "Wolfe had tried to convince me not to go. I guess he thought that you would have fucked everything up."

Vicious held back a chuckle.

"At least everything makes sense now, right?" Spike said. "Wolfe bugged your phone, and now we know for sure that Shin and Lin don't plan to invite him to any future parties."

It was an unspoken thing between them that Wolfe had not bugged Spike's phone because Wolfe had given Spike his trust.

"Shit." Spike stopped and sighed, and Vicious turned around to face him.

"What?"

Spike looked at him, peeking through his bangs, and his lips were stretched tight with the indecision of whether to say something or not. "You know what this means, right?"

"I think I do." Vicious replied mildly.

"So what the hell are we supposed to do?"

Vicious bit his lip, and uncharacteristic action that betrayed his anxiety. He turned around, determined not to let Spike see.

"What do you think?" He asked, and he heard the other man chuckle.

"I'm doing--" Spike exhaled, and his voice softened. "--whatever you're doing."

"That's funny." Vicious said lightly. "I was about to say the same thing."

Spike placed a hand on Vicious' shoulder and turned him around-- Vicious didn't meet Spike's eyes.

"You're serious." Spike said. He nodded to himself. "Well, that's fucking fabulous."

Vicious looked up, an eyebrow raised. Spike let him go and laughed, shaking his head.

"Neither of us can make a decision." Spike said, grinning. "We are so fuckin' _dead._"

It took a moment for Vicious to appreciate the moment, the incongruity of it; it took Vicious a moment to realize that he had made a confession that Spike had seemed to accept it without batting an eyelash.

Vicious remembered something as they got in the car, as he turned the key in the ignition.

"I have to report in to Wolfe tomorrow morning."

"Shit." Spike's eyes widened imperceptibly. "Where?"

"Annie's." Vicious said.

"Do you want me to--"

"No." Vicious finished Spike's thought. No, he didn't need Spike there. But the offer was enough to assure him-- that--

_I'm doing whatever you're doing. _ 

There was a moment of silence, before a hushed _okay,_ and Vicious hid a smile, hid a sudden, absurd rush of happiness that had coursed through him.

"Vicious--"

Vicious turned around, impassive.

"Seatbelts." Spike reminded him.

tbc

A/N: Thanks for reading! 3 I plan to have the next part out within a month or so, and I will definitely begin writing it once the review counter hits the 80-mark. =3

I've actually decided to expand _Symphony Hall _into an epic about Vicious' life from the Red Dragons' early beginnings with Wolfe to its end when Vicious is finally its ringleader. To clear up any confusion that might remain: the Red Dragons that are on Mars _now_ are run by Wolfe and have nothing to do with the intergalactic Chinese mafia of which Shin and Lin are members. As you can tell from their dialogues, there will be an eventual coup… but how will this affect Vicious and Spike's relationship? evil grin That remains to be seen.

This fic is purely based on speculation and my interpretation of Vicious' character. It's probably way out of line with what Watanabe & Co. had in mind for the cast of Cowboy Bebop, but I had always been disappointed that they'd never made a prequel. I guess this is my way of venting frustrations.

Thanks to everybody who stuck around for so long. I know I haven't updated this in like… almost a year, really. Oo  School = time-consuming. Unfortunately, so is fanfiction-writing. ;;

The review button is right there! points down Go on, click it!   ==


	9. Affirmation

**The Symphony Hall**

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations.

A/N: And in this chapter, we come to a couple of understandings. =3 I promised to have posted this chapter n August, I know, and now it's late August. O.o I apologize… I've made it a little longer than the usual 5-6 pages! Hope you guys like it!

**Radishface**

* * *

- 9 - 

The night air was cool in their faces and the crickets chirped and the moon glowed and the stars twinkled and Vicious didn't give a fuck.

He and Spike were on the cusp of something, he thought. They were at the edge of something, and Vicious was too full of chicken-shit to analyze what it could be. He wouldn't allow himself that extra hope—not when there was a possible coup within their small gang. Not when the mysterious _Elders _had suddenly started to subtly issue orders with Lin and Shin as their 'negotiation' front.

Or maybe the edge was something strictly predictable. The Red Dragons, the Elders, a chance to get rid of a C-level syndicate boss who wasted his time and money with the small things.

A C-level syndicate boss who had bugged his phone, Vicious closed his eyes. But how—

It was suddenly clear to him. It was petty, insignificant, and in many ways, ironic. Gritting his teeth, Vicious resisted the urge to whip out his cell phone and give that bastard a call that minute. It could wait. He'd see him tomorrow morning.

Spike had walked briskly to the top of the stairs and was fumbling with his keys as Vicious rounded the corner.

"I've got some beer in the fridge." Spike said, his lips pulled back into an easy grin. "I know you were holding back at dinner. Somebody had to drive us home."

The door opened, and Spike stumbled in, Vicious followed, noting that the living room's condition was just as decrepit as he had last seen it. A fine layer of dust covered Spike's television screen, and the couch (the only piece of furniture in that room) had a new rip along one of the back cushions, the stuffing poking out obscenely. He threw his coat over a chair in the kitchen and watched Spike as the other man bent over to rummage around in the refrigerator.

"I bought a pack this afternoon." Spike tossed him a bottle, and Vicious watched as Spike popped the cap of his beer with his teeth. "It seemed fitting."

Vicious raised an eyebrow, a silent question.

"A man can only take so much wine and fine dining before his baser instincts kick in." Spike shook his head, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Baser instincts." Vicious repeated, and twisted off the cap of his beer.

"You know." Spike glanced thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Cheap women. Cheap beer. Cheap money."

"Spike, there's no such thing as cheap money."

"Cheap money," Spike began, as if reciting an old adage, "is like a cheap woman. They both come easily."

Vicious suppressed a smile and they drank their beer in silence, the absolute stillness of midnight only interrupted by the sudden _click-whrrrrr_ as the refrigerator hummed.

It hadn't taken Vicious very long to realize that this was a routine between the two of them—late nights, coming home to one of their apartments, and drinking in silence. It was a self-absorbed, thoughtful kind of silence—the kind where Vicious would meditate over past missions, where Spike would turn on the television and watch basketball in a mindless stupor. It was the kind of silence where Vicious would challenge Wolfe's decisions and Spike would see the fire in the other man's eyes and wisely shut up. It was companionable.

Vicious glanced up from his beer and found Spike sitting down at the kitchen table, his coat thrown over the table, an empty beer bottle dangling from long fingers. The other man was looking for something—cigarettes, most likely, and clicked his tongue in triumph as he dug a slightly bent cigarette from the depths of his coat pockets. Vicious tossed him a lighter, and the smell of smoke filled the air as Spike lit up and took a drag.

"Are you finishing that?" Spike gestured at the almost-empty bottle that Vicious was holding.

"You want the rest?"

Spike shook his head. "It's only a mouthful."

Vicious set the bottle down on the counter and clenched his fist, then opened it again. _Clench. Unclench._ "So. About the cheap women."

Spike regarded him with amusement. "You want them right now?"

"No." Vicious shook his head. "I—"

"I know."

Vicious swung around and gave Spike an incredulous look—_what the hell do you know, how the hell do you know. _Spike held his gaze, and suddenly the smoke in the room seemed to have condensed around the two of them, and every breath Vicious took sounded harsh as it echoed in his ears.

"I told you." Spike said easily, shrugging. "I can smell it on you. You stink like a fucking dog."

"That's not what I was going to say." Vicious managed, and blinked. It was a lie. He hadn't a clue about what he had just been about to say.

"So what, then?" Spike's eyes were just a little wider, and he leaned forward in his chair, a puff of smoke escaping his lips. Vicious swallowed and watched as the smoke disappeared.

"You—" Vicious said, and stopped. He didn't trust himself. Somehow, the words he wanted to say had dissolved into the air around them, thick and oppressive, grey and opaque. "Your virgins."

Spike sat back and his eyes were shuttered, half-mast. "So what about them?"

"You're going to be out of options." Vicious said, and he didn't know what he was saying, or why he was saying it. The taste of alcohol burned in his mouth. "You're going to fuck all of them someday."

"No, I'm not." Spike's eyes glittered brightly; Vicious could see it even in this dark haziness. "Thanks for the encouragement—but you know. They take too long to break in."

"Not enjoying the chase like before?" Vicious asked.

Spike shook his head, and stared off into the distance. "Oh no. The chase is always there." A hint of a smile crossed his face, and he trained his gaze on Vicious. "That's the thing I can always count on."

"And the reward is worth the chase?" Vicious said. It didn't feel like he was saying it—his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He clenched the neck of the beer bottle, to reassure himself it was there. To reassure himself that he was here.

"Of course."

"And the end justifies the means?" His voice seemed so small to himself.

"Absolutely."

They stared at each other like that for a minute—Spike's features barely visible through all that damned smoke in the air, the blackness surrounding them, but Vicious could see the light in Spike's eyes, made all the more apparent from the alcohol, his lips slightly parted, the hard curve of his neck framed by the wide collar of his shirt. Vicious drew a shuddering breath. This was Spike, barriers down, and the alcohol wasn't to blame. Spike could hold his liquor. This was different. This was the side of Spike that _only_ Vicious got to see. This wasn't Wolfe's Spike; this wasn't the Red Dragon's Spike. Spike, with his hair in his face and his eyes glimmering gently in a haze of smoke and a faint quirk in his lips, _that_ was for Vicious to see, and only his to see.

Vicious drew a shuddering breath. _You can't think that._ He reminded himself, furiously. _You're crazy. _

A car alarm went off in the distance, and Spike gave a start. Vicious turned his head to face the window, the faint orange of the sidewalk lights a beacon for this suddenly lost feeling that rose in him, and he knew he had to leave.

"I've got to get going." Vicious said, pointing at the beer, Spike's beer, his beer. "I still have to drive myself back."

He saw Spike's gaze flicker to the couch, a silent invitation, and then the other man shrugged. "Sure." His voice was carefully blank, and Vicious gritted his teeth.

_No,_ he thought. To what—his vulnerability, to Spike's open offer, alwaysopen, _can't let you get caught by the cops, so just stay the night, leave in the morning, have some of my special hangover crap if you want to._ _Eggs and something else.__ Raw eggs. _

"I'll see you tomorrow." Vicious said, throwing the bottle in the trash, grabbing his coat off the chair he'd tossed it on, throwing it over his shoulder. Spike's expression was closed, neutral, his lips pulled back in a smile.

"I knew you couldn't hold back on your baser instincts." Spike said, laughing. "First the cheap beer, now the cheap women." Spike stood up, setting his bottle on the table.

Vicious said nothing to contradict him. If Spike wanted to believe that he was going to pick up cheap women, so be it.

"I'd come with you, but—" Spike took a breath. "Yeah. Couldn't hit on a rock to save my life right now."

Vicious allowed Spike's hand on the small of his back, allowed Spike to guide him to the door.

He'd wanted to talk about cheap money. He'd wanted to talk about Wolfe and the inevitable coup, he'd wanted to talk about Spike saying, _I'm doing whatever you're doing. _He wanted to know what that meant, how far that extended.

The cheap women beat him to it.

"Good night." Vicious said.

Spike laughed, running a hand through his hair, scrubbed his face. "G'night." 

* * *

The dating process was slow, Vicious thought. It was tremendously slow. It involved connections, and gifts, and hypocritical compliments. It involved courtship. It involved patience, and it involved romance. Suffice to say, it was harshly involving.

Perhaps Vicious didn't know Spike as well as he thought he did.

Spike, who carried a gun and wanted to shoot it on sight, whose fingers had trembled impatiently on the trigger when he had his first encounter with the Water Leopards years ago, Spike, who dug into his meals without finesse, great mouthfuls of food crammed down his throat at breaking speed, Spike, who would hoard a half-smoked cigarette in his pocket simply because he wouldn't want to take the effort to open another box of them.

And apparently, Spike, who took his sweet time to romance virgins, to prowl the suburbs and comb his hair and look respectable and do all those things that were time-consuming and involving. Vicious felt his eyebrows knot together in an unconscious frown.

He thought about these things as he was sitting in Wolfe's office, watching Wolfe watch him. It was strangely satisfying, he thought, to know that Spike would do these things, could manage to do these things for those girls.

Vicious looked down at the plush carpeting, imagined being barefoot in Wolfe's office, digging his toes into the material. He tried not to think about Spike's toes on Spike's carpet in Spike's apartment, naked toes and naked feet and naked ankles and inevitably, a girl's naked ankles locked in a painful embrace around Spike's naked waist in some cruelly distorted façade of lovemaking. It was Spike's quirk, Vicious thought. _Virgins._

He exhaled sharply, and peered up at Wolfe through the thick of his bangs. The man smiled disarmingly at him, his fingers laced together.

"So you won't tell me what happened?" Wolfe clicked his tongue, and shook his head. "How can that be?"

"We discussed nothing of importance." Vicious stated coolly. "It's nothing you don't know already."

Wolfe arched one eyebrow. "Please. Tell me what I know."

Vicious pushed his feet into the carpet, imagined being barefoot again. "You know that they're based in China. You know that they have operations in other places. Scattered around. You know that they use a biotechnology corporation as their syndicate front. You know that they share the same name as us."

Wolfe nodded and sat back in his chair, closing his eyes. "Let me tell you what else I know."

Vicious sank his feet a little harder into the carpet. There would be indentations left there.

Wolfe opened a desk drawer and brought out a hand-held tape recorder. Holding it up to his ear, he grinned at Vicious and pressed the _play _button.

"_… think, that the Elders are looking forward to expanding onto Mars. Again, we wanted to merge with your organization because it is already quite established within this locality. The only reason we can tell you these things is because the Elders have already made their decision. We are almost ninety-nine percent sure that we will annex your organization and make it a division of our syndicate._" Lin.

_"Has Wolfe agreed to this?" _Vicious recognized the voice as his own. __

_"The man--is not to be bothered, on our orders."_ Lin.

_"Not to be bothered, or not bothered with?"_ It was Spike's voice, faintly disbelieving.

_"Both." _

Wolfe turned the tape recorder off, and cracked on eye open. "He gave a very thorough account of the syndicate."

Vicious didn't rise to the bait. "He did." He could hear the blood rushing through his head, roaring in his ears.

"And, if I remember correctly— " Wolfe closed his eyes again, his eyebrows arching pretentiously. "—oh, I remember. _I'm doing whatever you're doing._" His smile grew wider. "Did you ever decide on what you were going to do?"

Vicious chose not to say anything.

"Then I suppose I have a fifty-fifty chance of guessing what you and Spike are going to do." Wolfe said, and reached under his desk.

Vicious pulled out his gun the same instant Wolfe did, and the next moment they were both standing, aiming for each others' heads, steely grey eyes boring into cool blue ones, Wolfe's desk between them.

"What they're offering you would be too much for you, Vicious." Wolfe said. "You're just a delivery boy. You and Spike. That's all you are."

"And you're just our boss." Vicious said, both hands on his gun. "You're just the boss of two delivery boys."

"What makes you think that it'll be different with the Chinese?"

"They don't just think about fucking every night."

Wolfe's eyes flashed. "Prove your loyalty to the Red Dragons." He said.

"I don't have to prove anything." His voice had taken on a guttural quality, hoarse in his throat.

"You don't think I've been watching you?" Wolfe shook his head, stepping around the desk, keeping his gun pointed at Vicious. "This is standard procedure. I have men watching Spiegel right now. One word from me, and he's dead."

"He's _Spiegel _now?" Vicious felt like laughing. He was in Wolfe's office, with Wolfe's gun pointed at his head, his gun pointed at Wolfe's head, and minutes ago he had been imagining his bare toes curling into Wolfe's carpet.

"The ends justify the means." Wolfe grinned.

"No." Vicious said, his voice low in his throat. "You didn't."

Wolfe nodded, gripping the gun harder as he picked up the tape recorder again, clicked it on against his ear.

_"Not enjoying the chase like before?" _

_"Oh no.__ The chase is always there. That's the thing I can always count on." _

_"And the reward is worth the chase?" _

_"Of course."___

_"And the end justifies the means?"_

_"Absolutely."_

"Have you forgotten already?" Wolfe laughed, and threw the tape recorder on the table.

The clatter resounded in their ears. "_Spiegel_." Vicious wanted to laugh. "_Spiegel._"

"Prove your fucking loyalty to this organization, Vicious." Wolfe whispered. "Prove your _fucking loyalty._"

Vicious reached into his pocket and pulled out the bugged cell phone. "This. _This_ proves my loyalty." He threw it onto Wolfe's desk, heard it fall to the floor with a muffled thump. "I have nothing to prove."

Wolfe shrugged. "It was standard procedure."

"Standard procedure." Vicious chuckled. "_Fuck you_."

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."

"I'm fifty percent of a decision that hasn't been made yet."

"You're fifty percent of a liability this organization can't afford to have."

"You don't care about liability." Vicious shook his head, eyes wide with incredulity. "You don't care about this organization. Indecisive. _Weak_. Those are the qualities of this organization."

"I heard an engine running for five hours last night." Wolfe's tone was soft, mockingly gentle. "I heard you driving for five hours last night. I heard that after hearing you leave from Spiegel's apartment. Am _I_ the indecisive one?"

"Pathetic." Vicious said. "You're the pathetic one."

"At least I know what I want." Wolfe held his gun a little higher.

"You're not getting it." Vicious whispered.

"No, I don't think I could." Wolfe's tone was thoughtful. "Especially not when so much is at stake, right?" He gave his telephone a meaningful glance, and looked back up at Vicious. "I don't think I would be able to get much of anything if he were scattered all over the street."

Vicious ground his teeth, his hands shaking as he set the gun down. "Fuck you. _Fuck you._"

"Go fuck Spike." Wolfe replied nonchalantly as he took Vicious' gun, placed it in his holster. "You might earn your own self-respect."

Vicious bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood.

"Now if you'll run along." Wolfe sighed, and dropped into his chair, fingering the barrel of his gun. "I have some work to do."

* * *

He resisted the urge to crash his car into a wall and leave it a wreck. It was likely that Wolfe had done more than plant a bug in his cell phone—but he had no idea where the other surveillance material could be. In his car, in his apartment, in his food. In Spike's apartment, because that tape had recorded their conversation from last night--

But it was on the same tape that had followed the dinner conversation with Shin and Lin. Vicious screeched to a stop at a red light. It might be safe to assume that Spike's apartment wasn't bugged.

Virgins, Vicious realized. The fuckin' _innocents_.

He wrenched the steering wheel around, tires screaming in the U-turn. You couldn't see the red lights in a red-light district in the afternoon. But it didn't matter.

_"When am I going to meet your little friend, anyway? Spike? I think that was his name." _

Spike was clean in more ways than one. 

* * *

"It was an assignment." Lisa said, her blue eyes a little too bright. Her chin was thrust out defiantly. Vicious stood by the door, arms crossed.

He had gone to the bar that Lisa usually frequented. She was there, chatting with her colleagues. She'd given him a smile of recognition and he'd vaguely gestured to the inn next door. She'd mouthed 'fifteen' at him, and he'd gone ahead and got a room.

And she'd opened the door, pressed her hot little mouth against his, and he reciprocated, shutting the door behind them, slipping her coat off and tying her hands together behind her back with her scarf. She'd blinked at him, a slight smirk on her face.

"You've gotten a little kinkier since I last saw you." She'd grinned.

Vicious had shaken his head and shoved her onto the bed. She gave a little squeal as she tumbled face-first into the pillows. "That's not what this is about."

"Oh." She'd said, blankly, at first. Then her eyes widened. "Oh."

"So tell me." Vicious said, sitting on the bed.

She'd jumped up and swung her head at him, and he'd barely managed to duck before she jammed her stiletto heels into his upper thigh and made a sprint for the door. He'd grabbed her hands, still tied together, and had yanked her back against the bed, and had pressed a hand against her mouth.

"It wouldn't matter if you screamed, anyway." He'd said, and let her go, standing up to guard the door. "So tell me."

And it was an assignment. A well-paid assignment, Vicious heard. One that kept her living comfortably for two weeks without having to serve a single customer.

"And now?" Vicious asked.

"Now I'm back." Lisa glared at the sheets, at the room. "Wonderful, isn't it?"

Vicious raised an eyebrow. "Were you paid to bug Spike's phone as well?"

Lisa hunched into herself, shaking her head. "Could have had another two weeks off if I had gotten him. You were assigned to me." Lisa said. "But Padre had instructions from Dr. Rodnag that whomever could land this guy would receive the reward."

"Padre?" Vicious prompted.

"Our." Lisa bit her lip. "You know."

Vicious nodded. "And Dr. Rodnag?"

Lisa shrugged. "You figure that one out."

_Dr. Rodnag._ Vicious shook his head as he made his way back over to Lisa. _Red Dragon._

He sat her up and untied her hands, watching her wince and rub at her wrists.

"As far as you're concerned," Lisa said, lying back against the headboard, "they just think you're here for your afternoon fuck."

It wasn't necessary to specify who _they_ were.

Vicious settled next to her, hands folded on his stomach. "So I'm not leaving right now."

"Not unless you can explain why you left such a huge sum of money for a ten-minute screw." Lisa said, her lips quirked in a half-smile, half-grimace as she closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm staking my ass on the line for you. You'd better put out."

Vicious reached into his pocket and pulled out his new cell phone, the one that Lin had given him. Lisa cracked open an eye. "Tempted?" He asked.

Lisa snorted and turned over onto her side.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Vicious pulled into the parking lot of Spike's apartment complex. He stopped his car and rolled down his window, fingers digging in his coat pocket for his lighter, a half-smoked cigarette already between his lips.

He watched the sun set, watched the sky turn from blue to pink to orange. He tried to guess which of the windows belonged to Spike's apartment. He smoked, he nibbled on the end of his cigarette, felt the paper and the filter give way under his teeth.

His cell phone rang once, but he didn't answer it. When the street lights turned on, Vicious dropped his cigarette on the asphalt and started his car. 

* * *

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**A****/N:** Thanks for reading this chapter! 3 The review mark hit past 80, which made me sooo happy. =D This is probably the most-reviewed fic that I've written (and will keep writing!). I will definitely start writing chapter 10 when the review counter hits 90; I plan to have the chapter out around late September – early October.

I didn't get around to writing Lin and Shin into this chapter, which makes me sad. ;; But they will be in the next chapter for sure! Lin's fierce loyalty and protectiveness of Vicious always surprised me (as so valiantly displayed in the Jupiter Jazz episodes :D), and I hope to explore how that developed in the upcoming chapters.

Doesn't the blackmailing just scream 'plot device!' ? But the big S/V moment shouldn't be too far now. Heh.

And if you're not happy with what little action is going on right now between S & V (I know I'm not… all this plot is exhausting… and all the UST! . ), never fear! I have a special (heh heh heh) citrus-flavored fic that I plan to write and post once the counter reaches 100 reviews. =3 Muwahar.

Thanks again for reading! And the review button is right there. puppy-dog eyes Make my day! =D


	10. Hangman

**The Symphony Hall**

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations.

A/N: A couple of issues are resolved in this chapter. And since I've failed to post it when I _said _I would post it (as I always do ), I've made the chapter a little bit longer. 3 Hope you guys like it; the end isn't too far now!

**Radishface**

* * *

- 10 -

It really was a _don't call us, we'll call you _situation.

One week had passed, then two. Neither Lin or Shin hadcontacted him, and Wolfe hadn't bothered tocall him after their little altercation. Vicious could care less.

The only person that called was Spike. Spike's number, singular and lonely, appearing in his list of missed phone calls at least eleven times.

He left his new cell phone plugged into the charger, picked up his coat, and headed over to Spike's apartment. Sometimes he sat in his car in the parking lot; sometimes he walked around the block.

He didn't feel like sitting in his car today. The sky was cloudy, and as Vicious stepped out of the car, it began to drizzle. Beacons of grey light slatted through the clouds.

The other man obviously wasn't expecting him. Luckily for Vicious, Spike wasn't the type to be surprised. He answered the door wearing a pair of old sweatpants, slung low on his hips. The drawstring was undone.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Spike yawned, and stepped out of the way to let Vicious in. Vicious noted the morning stubble on Spike's face, and decided that it looked decent on him.

"I decided to drop by." Vicious said, not bothering to take his shoes off.

"At fucking five in the morning?" Spike muttered, but Vicious heard the grin in his tone.

"You busy?" Vicious asked. He smelled sweat and sex on Spike. Maybe dropping by at five in the morning unannounced was not the wisest thing to do. The pangs in his chest weren't heartburn. Vicious stared in the direction of Spike's bedroom.

"Well." Spike grinnedand stifled a yawn. "You caught me at a bad time."

"Ah." Vicious nodded, and turned to the door. "I should go, then."

"You don't have to." Spike shifted from one foot to the other. "I mean."

This shouldn't have been awkward. Vicious wasn't even sure why he had even offered to leave. He had been here before, had barged into Spike's apartment before, unannounced. He'd sat on the couch while Spike finished his business. He'd seen the girls' reactions as they realized another man was outside, that maybe _privacy _meant something a little different to the both of them.

Something had changed along the way, and Vicious wasn't quite sure he knew what it was.

"I'll go." Vicious said.

Spike shrugged. "I'll be free later."

"We'll see." His hand was poised over the doorknob.

"I will." Spike reached out and grabbed his arm, stilling him. "In ten fucking minutes. _Vicious._"

He looked up into Spike's eyes, slightly taken aback at the intensity he saw there. "Spike."

"You don't think I know?" Spike's grip tightened on his arm, his voice a low whisper.

Vicious dropped his gaze. There were so many things that Spike could know. He could know that Shin and Lin were definitely planning a coup sometime soon. He could know that Wolfe had already dropped Vicious from the loop. He could know that Wolfe had used Spike against Vicious like some sort of fucking damsel in distress. He could know a lot of different things. He could know what that _meant,_ if Vicious let himself be blackmailed into doing what Wolfe wanted simply because Wolfe could pull the trigger on Spike at any moment.

He shouldn't have come here. He was weak, to give in like this, to want to _see _Spike, to see that Wolfe's men hadn't gotten to him yet.

"I know," Spike said, "that you've been out there almost every single fucking _day_. I don't know _why _you do it. "

"Spike." Vicious managed to say.

"I'm right here, Vicious." Spike said, and let go of his arm. "I've _been _here for the last two fucking weeks."

Vicious was silent, waiting for the inevitable interruption. The girl would be calling for Spike any minute now. It was a predictable, rather pathetic affair, and here was Vicious, standing in front of Spike's door, trapped in a moment of indecision.

_Maybe Wolfe was right. _

He could feel Spike's eyes boring holes into his head, he could feel his brain sizzling, boiling in his skull. Spike's face was inches from his, and Vicious knew this was a bad idea, that he shouldn't have come here when he knew that Spike always had some fucker around at five in the morning. He was just setting himself up, and Spike's face was just inches from his, and if he turned his head a little they would be touching, and Vicious didn't know why his heart jumped in his chest at the thought, at that little word, at something so little as that, _touching. _

He liked to fuck himself up, didn't he? Five in the morning, he _knew _that Spike would have just woken up, he knew that Spike would have just been smoking his morning cigarette after his morning fuck. And Spike, breath ghosting across his face, he could smell the cigarettes, that morning cigarette. He could taste the ashes on his tongue. He could hear the rain start outside, steady drops falling on the windows, and in here it was unbearably humid, the moisture choking him to death.

"I'll call you." Vicious said, pushing the door open, staggering outside before he gave into the impossible. He slammed the door behind him, almost hurtled down the flight of stairs.

Spike didn't follow him, and Vicious was disappointed and frustrated and relieved all at once. He imagined he could hear the sounds of Spike getting back into bed with his fuck of the day. He imagined the questions, the answers, the inevitable diversion: Spike's calloused, broad hands trailing up her thighs and up her back, kneading her breasts, his mouth on hers, their breath puffing out in short pants as Spike slid into her, dick and tongue and fingers, all at once.

He had lit a cigarette unconsciously, dragging on the fumes in great, gasping lungfuls of nicotine and tar and poison, his teeth wearing gently at the paper in his mouth, the tip of his tongue pushing lightly at the filter.

Wolfe wasn't right. Vicious was in control of his own destiny, he could do whatever he damned well wanted to do. Vicious could smoke cigarettes at five in the morning, he could come visit Spike at five in the morning, he could stand out here in the rain and smoke his cigarettes after visiting Spike at five in the morning. He could realize that he wanted more than cigarettes and rain at five in the morning, if he wanted to.

Vicious didn't want to.

* * *

"What?"

Annie blinked wearily at him. Her coffee hadn't quite kicked in yet.

"I want to know about Spike."

"God damn." Annie yawned. "Okay, you want to know something about him? Smoking kills."

"You know what I'm talking about." Vicious was _this_ close to reaching over the counter and taking Annie by the collar and wringing the answer out of her.

"I don't know what you mean." Annie said, eyebrows settling for a harried frown. "You never come in here so early. How the hell am I supposed to know if you're making any sense?"

"Annie."

"_Vicious._" She said, her voice taking on an exasperated tone. Vicious looked up and saw an earnest, almost desperate expression in her eyes.

_Not here._ _Not now._

He nodded. "I need a couple of new magazines for the Jericho."

"That's Spike's gun." Annie said, and Vicious heard her rummage behind the counter. "What the hell do you want Jericho clips for?"

Vicious didn't answer.

"If you ask me," Annie said, "you baby him too much."

He felt a strange warmth diffuse through him, and angrily shoved it away. "I didn't ask."

"In my opinion," Annie said, "you spend too much time with him."

Vicious wanted to laugh, _well, that just shows how much you know._

A plump hand shot out and slammed the clips against the counter. "He knew what he was getting into."

_He didn't. _Vicious thought. _He was just a kid without a college degree. He just needed something to do. He wanted easy money, and he thought this was the way to get it. Easy women come easily, Spike could attest to that. Easy money… there's no such thing. _

_He shouldn't even be a part of this, _Vicious thought. _I used to work alone. There was some form of continuity there. _

"He can die if he wants." Annie said nonchalantly. "You're not his keeper."

"If you say so." Vicious replied, just as easily. "Thanks." He pocketed the clips, and then felt something being pressed into his hand.

"Don't forget your receipt." Annie said.

Vicious nodded, and walked out of the shop, his index finger running over the crease in the paper.

Six in the morning. The rain hadn't abated, but Vicious was parked right in front of the store. In his car, he opened up the receipt that Annie had given him.

_1 FHM 10_

_1 Playboy 15_

_Genuine quality ramen noodles_

_40.00_

_Genuine, genuyn, Nguyen_, Vicious thought. He could be at the man's office at one, provided he didn't take an extended lunch break with Lisa like he usually did.

Vicious let out a sudden laugh. Who the hell was he kidding?

Starting up the car, he checked his watch. It was seven in the morning. He had six hours to kill.

* * *

Dr. Nguyen's office was located in the heart of the city, tucked away in the housing developments that had gotten started and then had been abandoned. Mars was moving out to the suburbs, sociologists said. After the initial excitement of colonization and expansion had worn off, people wanted a return to normalcy; this accounted for the rise in housing developments around the outskirts of the city, where people could pretend as though they were back on Earth, because that's where everybody really wanted to be.

"Ah, Vincent." Dr. Nguyen peered out of his office, and Vicious rose from his seat in the dingy waiting room. "To see you here again—it is good."

"Doctor." Vicious acknowledged.

Dr. Nguyen was a minute man with a head that was seventy percent grease and thirty percent toupee. His narrow black eyes glinted from behind thin spectacles that were more for decoration than anything else; laser surgery had corrected any imperfections long ago. He was the Red Dragons' special doctor; the man received monthly payments from Wolfe in exchange for his medical services. Dr. Nguyen spoke with a slight accent that was entirely faked; a disarming measure; he made up names for them, _Vincent _for Vicious and _Spielman _for Spike.

"Annabelle wanted to talk to you." Dr. Nguyen busied himself behind the register, no doubt digging for his handgun. Vicious watched him out of the corner of his eye as he sat back down in the worn leather seat. "You've knocked her up, Vincent?"

Dr. Nguyen had a strange sense of humor: one that could get a gun down his throat. "I don't think so." Vicious said, and Dr. Nguyen laughed, an annoying nasally chuckle that was completely genuine. He was a backalley abortionist, but he was a backalley abortionist with a heart of gold.

"I should not think so." Dr. Nguyen said, sitting behind the register now, chin propped up on one hand. "She is not seeming to be your type."

Vicious bit the inside of his mouth because there was no cigarette to act as his pacifier. "So, doctor." Vicious said, managing to keep his voice to a growling murmur. "How has business been?"

"Horrible, Vincent." Dr. Nguyen rolled his eyes. "Everybody is using carefully the contraceptives now. Nobody has come here in weeks. Perhaps your Red Dragons should honor me a favor and give the defective contraceptives, yes?"

Vicious smiled despite himself. "We'll see."

"Ah, Vincent. Always so ambivalent."

"Be careful, doctor." Vicious said. "Your education is showing through."

"_Ambivalent _is too neat a word, yes?" Dr. Nguyen took his glasses off, squinted at them. "I shall make it _confused_. Ah, Vincent, always so _confused._ And then me-- two Ph.D.s, and where am I ending up?"

Vicious gestured at the waiting room.

"Yes, well." Dr. Nguyen straightened, and Vicious saw the doctor's hand clench inside his pocket, gripping the end of the handgun protectively. Dr. Nguyen's eyes followed his. "Of course, Vincent. I mean you no harm. But any moment now there could be the government running into here and taking everything. You know what I do, it is illegal."

"And you're going to shoot government agents?" Vicious said, standing up as well. He couldn't trust anybody now, could he? With Wolfe on hiatus and the Chinese waiting to make their move, millions of transactions could have transpired within the past few days and Vicious wouldn't have been any wiser. Wolfe would be wise to use the last of his resources before his time ran out, but killing Vicious wasn't going to solve anything.

"I am not shooting the government agents." Dr. Nguyen said. "How then, if I am in jail, should I be getting my family from Vietnam here to Mars?"

Vicious shrugged, rolled his shoulders, hearing them creak in their sockets. "Maybe _you_ aren't."

He heard the _snap _of the gun as the safety was disengaged, and Vicious was staring down the barrel of an antique Magnum.

"That's a nice piece." He said, smiling, letting a little teeth show. "It really shows your heritage."

"Wolfe is paying for my family's release from the camps." Dr. Nguyen said, outwardly calm, but Vicious saw the flicker of anxiety in the man's eyes. "I hope you understand."

"Maybe I do." Vicious said.

"I am killing one man so that many others may live." Dr. Nguyen said, swallowing. Vicious saw the quiver in the man's throat, chuckled to himself.

"You've killed a lot of babies to get where you are." Vicious said, and Dr. Nguyen pulled the trigger.

It made a pathetic clicking noise, and the look on Dr. Nguyen's little black eyes went from anxious to confused to terrified. His face turned white and he dropped the gun. "I-- I could have sworn-- "

"Too bad." Vicious could feel his grin spreading across his face as he ventured forward, pulling out his own gun, pressing it up against Dr. Nguyen's throat, feeling the clammy skin give way, the Adam's apple bobbing crazily. The doctor was crying, fat tears slipping out from the corners of his eyes, and Vicious wanted to laugh at him. "Well, maybe your family will get out anyway."

"Don't kill me." The doctor gasped pitifully. "I have information about what Wolfe wants with Spielman. He's--"

"He can take care of himself." Vicious said, jamming the gun harden into the man's windpipe, making him choke. "He doesn't need you."

"No, Spielman--"

Vicious didn't want to hear whatever the man had to say. Spike-- Spike had been fine this morning. Wolfe lay lethargic in his office, and the Chinese would soon step in and take over the organization. There would be a future ahead for them, for Spike and for Vicious and for everybody else involved in this lucrative capitalist loophole that was the syndication.

The Chinese would protect Spike. He was too valuable an asset to lose.

"Think about it." Vicious said, whispered into the other man's ear. "Your dying words are going to be _Spielman._ What are they going to think back in Vietnam?"

He pulled the trigger before and felt the doctor's body stiffen as his head was blown to pieces, bullet flying through Nguyen's brains as it ended its course lodged in the wall amidst a splatter of blood. Vicious felt something sharp cut his forehead, realized it was a piece of the doctor's bone.

The doctor's body slumped uselessly against his. Vicious dropped the man onto the floor and looked at him for a while, red blood oozing out of his mutilated face. Perhaps, Vicious thought, it would have been better to shoot him in the temple, classic suicide bullet entry. But it was plausible for a man to shoot himself in the neck and die, bleeding to death on the floor. Vicious checked his shoes-- they were clean.

He walked into the doctor's clinic room and rinsed his hands off with soap and water. Walking back out into the waiting room again, he wondered if the body's position was correct for a suicide shot. If Dr. Nguyen had killed himself, would the trajectory of the bullet be so that it entered the ceiling? Would the blood splatter the way it had?

The two diplomas hung up on the wall, certifying Dr. Nguyen as a doctor of gynecology and pediatrics. It was all a little ironic, and Vicious thought, _two Ph.D.s, and look where you are now._

He left through the back door. This was a seedy neighborhood and nobody would notice that Dr. Nguyen was missing. By the time anybody found him, his body would be bloated, decaying, rats and maggots would be crawling out of his bloodied head as if it were their new home. The blood on the wall would have dried to a rusty brown. It would look like a piece of modern art.

Vicious wasn't worried about Annie. The woman may have set him up, but Vicious didn't think Annie the shrewd type. At any rate, she'd have a nice surprise waiting for her when she got there. The thought made him smile.

* * *

He had gone back to his apartment after he'd killed the doctor, had isolated himself again. His phone rang a few times, from Annie, from various telemarketers. He wondered howthetelemarketers hadgotten his phone number-- it wasn't listed in the city's directories.

One night, as Vicious was getting out of the shower, his cell phone rang; it was Spike. Vicious stared at the phone for a minute, letting it ring, wondering about the qualities of forgiveness and love and lust, honor and masculinity. He answered the phone.

"Hello."

"Hey." Spike said, his voice coming through the phone in a burst of static. "I have some news for you. Wolfe needs a couple of drinking buddies tonight."

"And your point is?" Vicious deadpanned.

"Well, actually--" Spike's voice wassardonic. "He's attending the gala opening at the Forbidden City Casino. There's a ride picking us up at the park around the corner of my apartment complex."

"And he thinks he can trust us?"

"Something's going to happen." Spike said, voice cool. "We need to be there."

There was a long pause as Vicious processed the words; Spike was being deliberately vague, Vicious' answers were equally vague, his feelings equally elusive.

They couldn't help themselves; they were Red Dragons.

"I'll see you there." Vicious said, and hung up.

They arrived around the same time at the park, waiting in the silence and the quickening dark until a black sedan came around the bend.

"I saw Annie today," Spike said, fidgeting with his seatbelt. "She was a little out of it."

Vicious was silent, waiting for him to go on.

"I mean--" Spike hesitated, looking out the window. "We're on the same side, right?"

_Money, power and satisfaction?_ Vicious thought angrily. He didn't know why he was suddenly frustrated. _Maybe, _he thought, _if I have those things, I won't have to think about you anymore._

He could feign ignorance, _who are you talking about? You and Annie? Of course you're on the same side._

"Of course we are." He said instead, and felt Spike's hand on his shoulder.

"And what side is that?"

Vicious cast him a warning glance. It wasn't safe in here, not in Wolfe's car. Spike nodded and settled back in his seat, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.

Their chauffeur pulled up to the casino entrance, and politely declined the valet offer. Spike and Vicious entered the casino and were greeted by a blast of sound: tokens falling into metal bins, roulettes rolling, the gaudy chime of the slot machines, sounds of laughter at the card tables.

"Where are we supposed to meet him?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a large hand clapped him on the back. Vicious turned his head around and peered into Wolfe's face, flushed red, a light sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

"Where've you been?" The man asked, slurring his words. Vicious smelled alcohol on his breath. "I've been waiting."

"Car trouble." Spike said easily. Vicious cast him a wary glance; Spike's eyes roamed the casino, unperturbed.

"You're missing the fun." Wolfe said. "They told me you were coming, so I came down to greet you myself."

Vicious wondered how many shots Wolfe had, to act this way. The man was thoroughly intoxicated.

"What are you playing?" Spike said, and began walking towards the elevators with Wolfe. Vicious followed behind, letting his eyes fall freely on the hard slope of Spike's backside, the strong shoulders encased in the beige trenchcoat, calves tightly muscled under his black trousers, footsteps strong and sure.

"Twenty-one." Wolfe said, ringing up an elevator, grinning lewdly at the bellboy that passed their way. "Something I can still focus on, even with my--" he unsuccessfully masked a hiccup, "--limited capacities."

"Of course."

They descended down to the high roller and VIP rooms, and as they stepped out of the elevator they could smell the expensive cigars and cologne. Wolfe looked out of place among the portly gentlemen with their silk suits and their neatly combed hair. Wolfe looked like a mess, his coat off, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair sticking up in tufts.

"Gentlemen." The dealer was an Asian man with jet black hair and slanted eyes, his vest pristine, his frame light-boned. He had long, elegant fingers, Vicious noticed, like a typist's, maybe he had been an accountant, a bookkeeper. Spike was standing still, a sociable smile frozen onto his features, the other card players were looking at them expectantly. Vicious realized what this was. Wolfe was going to die, these gentlemen had paid a heady price to watch him make a fool of himself. Wolfe knew he was going to die, and he was living his last moments of life the only way he knew how.

"Gentlemen." The dealer repeated, shaking Vicious from his thoughts. "Would you like to join?"

"No thank you," Spike answered for the both of them. "We're just here to watch."

The frozen, tense atmosphere of the room dissolved for the moment, and vodka glasses clinked as they were refilled. Wolfe was loud, obnoxious, making jokes in his intoxicated state, and the portly gentlemen in the silk suits were laughing at him, at his antics. Wolfe was too young for this crowd, and Vicious almost felt a stab of sympathy for him.

"What side are you on?" Spike whispered into his ear as they watched the card game in progress. Vicious leaned into the warm breath ghosting across his neck, let himself think it was an unconscious act.

"Shh." He said, not daring to look at Spike, afraid that some facet of emotion would show through his face, reveal him. "Watch the game."

Spike didn't press the issue, and they watched the game. They watched Wolfe down the vodka shots, they watched as his hand gestures became increasingly sloppy, overwrought. Vicious smelled the fear on him, the anxiety, the desperation. It seemed too easy to watch Wolfe succumb to this. He'd been so full of his own ego, his own life, just a few days ago; now he was reduced to this useless, floundering wreck. The Chinese were going to ruin him, and he knew it.

But did Spike know it? His words as of tonight had been vague, ambiguous. Anything he said could have been from either side; he had not said if Wolfe had hired them both tonight as bodyguards, or if the Chinese had instructed them to come here to witness the coup.

He couldn't be certain of Spike's loyalties anymore than he could be of Annie's or Dr. Nguyen's. It left him empty, nauseous, to think that perhaps Spike was still loyal to this inept son of a bitch.

The games finished, and Spike and Vicious waited until everybody else had left before they went to Wolfe's side, hauling him out of the chair. Wolfe stumbled out of the room, penniless and giddy. _Good game,_ Vicious heard him giggle, _what a great game. Those guys can really play._

_Of course, _Spike said, placing a hand on the small of Wolfe's back, guiding him into the elevator. _They're the best._

Vicious stood on the opposite corner of the elevator, trying to distract himself from seeing Spike's hand resting lightly on Wolfe's hip, trying not to imagine what he would do if given the opportunity to kill Wolfe _right now_, here in this elevator, his skin and bones splattered on the security camera.

His eyes met Spike's for a moment as the elevator rose; he remembered that Spike had said something, he'd said _I'm doing whatever you're doing._ And he was saying it now, except neither of them was talking the lead. They were following implicit orders from the Chinese. He felt a ridiculous rush of affection for the other man, a biting, tremulous shudder of love that left him reeling, breathless. They were fighting a war, one that had no clear boundaries or definitions; how far would they go for each other?

_I'll go wherever you go._

Spike dialed the chauffeur's number on his cell phone and stood off to one side, speaking quietly. Vicious and Wolfe waited in the front. Wolfe's hand came down hard on his shoulder for the second time that night, and Vicious turned his head to find Wolfe frowning at him, as if the man didn't know who Vicious was.

"I'm not going to die, you know." Wolfe said conversationally. "But I should've killed you when I had the chance."

"Shut the fuck up." Vicious said.

"No, _you_. Shut up." Wolfe swayed precariously. "Fucking traitor. I know you. I should've never. Should've known that they'd do this to me. You know that this was their plan the whole time?" Wolfe closed his eyes. "You should be able to predict what those fucking commies are going to do. You should've seen it coming."

The black sedan pulled up into the driveway, and Vicious opened the back door and tossed him in. Spike came over just as he shut the door.

"Are we going with him?"

Vicious shook his head. "No."

There was a pause, a moment of hesitation as they watched the black sedan drive away, as they watched it disappear into the city.

"Come on, then." Spike said, his brown eyes uncharacteristically gentle. "I'll call us a cab. Let's go home."

* * *

Spike had been watching television, lanky body stretched out on the floor. Vicious had been sitting on the couch, watching Spike watch television. Spike had dozed off, his head leaning back against the couch cushions, mouth slightly open, his breathing adenoidal. Vicious stood up, careful not to disturb the other man, and walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and stared at the white interior.

He should have been loyal to the organization, to either Wolfe or the Chinese. He should have been loyal to his aspirations, his ambition, and maybe he was. But to ask him to fight to death for any of those things, and he would have questioned his purpose. It was in a man's nature to question things he didn't believe in; it was divine to find something to follow with unquestioning faith.

He would not think of Spike; he would not make that association.

* * *

"They found some guy buried in fifteen pounds of coke."

"No fucking way. What happened?"

"Guy owned a small business. Apparently his business partner was murdered a couple days ago. Looks like it wasn't such an innocent business after all."

"Well, given that amount of coke, you _think_?"

"They were drug dealers, something like that. His business partner, the first to go-- he'd been dead for a while before they found him. Decayed beyond recognition… something like that. Murdered in his office."

"And this other guy?"

"They tied him up and stuck his head in a bin of coke. There was air enough to breathe, but he basically OD'd himself to death."

"What a way to go."

"The best way to go."

"They catch the guys who did it?"

"They've got two suspects: the two guys who were last seen with him, in their twenties. Apparently the dead guy was the head of some organized crime unit. They say the guys they caught were working for him."

"So it was some sort of takeover."

"Well, you never know. They both had alibis. Hanging out, watching TV, stuff like that."

"You believe it?"

"Hey, you never know with these things."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! 3 3 The review mark is now over ninety, which makes me absurdly happy (yes, I am an sap for attention sweatdrop).

I'm rather angry with myself for not writing in Lin&Shin stuff. Well, they will be in the next chapter; it's already planned out. At the same time, I was happy that I got to write a little bit of Annie in there, and explore Dr. Nguyen's involvement in the conspiracy for a little bit. )

I feel that a smutty, light/fluffy piece is in order after this. They suffer too much angst as it is. xO

Thanks again for reading! Feedback and comments are accepted with glee… make my day! xD


	11. Commencement

**The Symphony Hall**

Pre-Bebop, pre-Julia. Twenty-year-olds Spike and Vicious are low-time gang members for a group called the Red Dragons, but when an opportunity makes itself clear, their lives are changed. Rated R for cussing and adult situations.

**Radishface**

-- 11 --

The police knocked on the door at five. They had just barely fallen asleep.

Spike had answered the door, a good-natured grin on his face. "What's up?"

The policeman recited their Miranda rights and then proceeded to frisk the both of them. Vicious was sure that this wasn't standard operating procedure, but then again, it seemed like nobody gave a fuck about SOP nowadays, himself included.

Spike kept that enigmatic smile pasted on his face the entire time, even when they were shoved in different cars, separated. The smile was still there when they were reunited again at the station. Spike looked a little chilly, clad only in a thin undershirt and a pair of sweatpants.

Vicious supposed his body language betrayed concern, because Spike's eyes widened just a fraction. He whispered, none too covertly, "trust me on this one."

And then the policeman barked for them to shut the hell up, so they did.

--

A few hours later, they were free.

Shin and Lin had come to their rescue— Spike was nonchalant about it all, as if he had expected it to happen. They'd had gone back to their apartments to change into respectable clothing, and then they were on their way to the Red Dragons syndicate headquarters, for better or worse.

"Doctor of jurisprudence?" Vicious repeated, as they drove away from the police station.

"You wouldn't believe it." Spike's voice contained only the slightest tremor of incredulity.

Lin shrugged appropriately. "I had already had the necessary prerequisites to finish undergraduate school in two years. After law school, I passed the bar."

"No big deal or anything." Spike huffed.

"Not really." Lin shrugged again. Vicious peered at Lin's downcast face and noticed a slight reddish tinge to his cheeks.

"He's the poster child of the Chinese family." Shin chimed in, much to Lin's apparent chagrin. "Hail the conquering hero: from a prestigious undergraduate university to a prestigious law school in two years, and then to becoming a prestigious lawyer."

"Your parents know about the… this… thing?" Spike waved his hands in the air. "Red Dragons," or "syndicate," or "this illegal drug trafficking…" it was a hand gesture that could have many interpretations.

Lin laughed quietly. "Heaven forbid."

"Or rather, heaven permits." Shin grimaced. "Their lovely dead bones see everything."

"Oh." Spike raised an eyebrow, and nodded.

There was a pause for a moment. The driver lit a cigarette, and rolled down his window. It was uncomfortably humid in the limousine. Apparently Lin had convinced the police station that the two men they had captured were part of an internal security measure, a domestic terrorist containment unit employed by the government. Never mind that there wasn't any paperwork, or that these two guys lived in a shithole with marijuana stowed away under the couch. Lin's jurisprudence degree had been hard-earned, but local economics also had a lot of say in the anticipated liberty of Spike and Vicious. A policeman's meager salary left a lot to be desired in terms of integrity.

"And me," Shin broke the silence, "I'm the runt of the family."

"No med school for you?" Spike said.

"Nah." Shin shook his head. "I've always wanted to join the Mafia."

--

The lobby of the syndicate building was air-conditioned, a welcome respite from the humid limousine. Their shoes clicked smartly on the marble tiles. Escalators beamed various suit-clad men to the mezzanine level. Vicious smelled sandwiches.

"We'll take you to the top floor." Lin said.

"Sounds good to me." Spike beamed. "And then sandwiches. All of us. Later. My treat."

They waited for the elevators.

"So, this place is… a what?" Spike asked.

"A pharmaceutical company." Shin smiled.

"Top-secret stuff." Lin nodded.

"Somewhat government-sanctioned, too." Shin said. "We sold a big quantity of steroids to the military the other week."

"Most of the labs are in the basement, but we've got a couple of chemical labs in the upper floors as well. And then there are the business levels…"

"The rest of the space is rented."

"And then men-to-women ratio?" Spike grinned.

"_There_ you are out of luck." Shin chuckled. "The syndicate rules state that there can be no relationships between male and female co-workers."

Spike bobbed his head sagely. "Understood, then."

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped in. Lin took a card out of his pocket and slipped it into a slot under the emergency call button.

Silence again. They stood, one man to each wall, and they shuffled their feet on the floor. Shin cleared his throat. Something remained unspoken—something was a little off, but Vicious couldn't put his finger on it—

"Wait a minute." Spike said. "No relationships between _male and female_ co-workers?"

"Well, yes." Lin stared. "For obvious reasons."

"I like the loophole you've got going there." Spike smirked.

"What loophole—" Lin blinked. "Oh."

"And _you, _of all people, my brother, should understand the importance of being specific." Shin chuckled. "Being a lawyer and all."

"Well, I—" Lin flushed, but stared defiantly. "I would have thought that _that _much would have been obvious."

The nagging feeling hadn't left. Vicious closed his eyes.

It would have been absurd to think that anything would have changed in terms of syndicate protocol. But this was not the time for meddling, for establishing useless interpersonal relationships. No, this was a chance to become great, to become infamous and famous. The definition of _greatness—_influence, power, presence, and magnitude—seemed possible. There was the potential to rise above a life of hustling and negotiating and gambling and womanizing. It seemed quite possible to achieve greatness, here in this suffocating, brightly-lit elevator that was on its way to the topmost floor.

Spike looked over at him and grinned, still amused over Lin's embarrassment. Vicious froze, caught between two extremes.

Here was Spike—Spike of youth, and energy, and naivety— Spike who said things like _I'll do whatever you're doing_, who remained loyal to Vicious despite opportunities for advancement under Wolfe's Red Dragons—Spike, who drank beer and fucked virgins and never kept a stocked refrigerator—all the things that they had done, that they could do in the future—because Spike was defined by the things he did, the way he acted, the cognizant gleam in his eyes even when he was drunk, the husky voice that pierced through the thickest of cigarette smoke, the stretch of his limbs when he crawled out of bed in the morning, the mess of hair on his head, the stubble on his face when he hadn't shaved, wide lips and white teeth and a long nose, his body worked like a column of flexible iron, the feel, the touch of his hand—localized and agonizing and electric—

Vicious caught his breath and jammed his hands into his pockets. His fingers itched to touch—just lightly, just barely touching, ghosting over his arms, down his sides, to rest on his hips, to breathe his breath and absorb him. He wanted to touch, to press his lips against Spike's neck and bleed the life from him, render him limp and drained and hollow, and then he wanted to give it all back, a thousand fold, breathe the life back into him so that Spike would be the one standing, supporting Vicious, because now Vicious would be the one limp and drained and hollow and grey and lifeless, what little life he had left entrusted to Spike, entrusted to this entity of man, so completely and absolutely and to know that it was a dangerous, stupid thing to do, and to do it anyway…

The cleanliness, the pristine quality of this elevator—Shin and Lin, their light talk and feigned naivety—it was all representative of the corruption, of submission to the organization. All the syndicate members in the lobby, going place to place, riding the escalators, eating in the cafeteria—they were a part of something that defined them, that held control over them—and here was Spike, who would never let that happen, unconsciously or consciously—

_What has he become to you?_

Vicious smiled back at Spike, let himself enjoy the joke, the humor, to let himself enjoy that moment when they were only looking at each other and everything else could just go fuck itself, who gave a fuck about the syndicate, who gave a fuck about what the higher powers thought, about what the higher powers could do—if they could get out of this thing, out of the bureaucracy, out of the entrenching temptations to power, if it were only the two of them…

"We're here." Shin announced, and the elevator doors opened.

A red carpet led to the center of the room, where six lacquer-wood chairs stood in two rows of three. Behind the chairs was a Red Dragons tapestry. Various ancient Chinese artifacts lined the walls—pottery, jade sculptures, calligraphy scrolls. The walls stretched above and culminated in a skylight that illuminated the six chairs in a decidedly gothic way.

The chairs were empty.

"The Elders would be here to witness your initiation into our Clan, but—" Lin gestured apologetically at the empty chairs.

"They're away on an important 'business trip' right now." Shin muttered. "Cryogenic rehab, you know. Anti-wrinkle cream just doesn't work the way it used to."

"_Shin._" Lin sounded appalled.

"Well, everybody knows anyway." Shin shook his head and eyed Spike and Vicious critically. "Besides, you guys are in."

"Wait, that's it?" Spike blinked. "We don't even get a ceremony? We don't have to kill anybody to prove anything?"

"Technically," Lin started, "you can forfeit your pre-contract and leave the syndicate."

"But that doesn't even have to be an option for you guys." Shin walked over to a cabinet and unlocked it, rummaging around inside. "The Elders aren't here today, but we're certified to carry this out. So, copper or zinc for you guys?"

Vicious turned to Spike, because they needed to consult and consolidate, and not about a decision over copper or zinc, but because they had a way out, because they _could _get out of this if they wanted to, because they could forfeit and buy out of the game.

_If it were only the two of us…_

Spike looked at Vicious, their eyes met in a desperate, clinging gaze, _well, what the hell do we do now, what the hell are we going to do, are we thinking the same thing, are we on the same track…_

And Spike's eyes said, _I'm doing whatever you're doing._

Vicious exhaled sharply, felt his breath go down to his very toes, and thought about comfort, and closeness, and Spike, and what might or might not happen, and how he'd be happy either way, with just his friend, with this friend who would go anywhere and do anything with him and for and how maybe he'd know what _happiness_ really was—localized, isolated happiness with one other person, close to a heart that'd beat for the both of them—

Spike's eyes flashed, confused, for a split second. Vicious knew that he'd given something away, some unheeded drop of emotion.

He couldn't afford that—that emotion, however small or subtle. Because if they left now—and if they weren't thinking the same thing, wanting the same thing—no, then they'd part their ways, and then where would he go? What would he do?

The Red Dragons would buy time. It would buy them a contract, infallible and indestructible, and it would buy them their future, predestined and cosmic and autocratic, but it would buy time, because Vicious didn't know what to do _now_, and he wanted a future, however trapped he might be, but he wanted a future, and he wanted acceptance from it.

He knew he was being hypocritical. Syndicate mentality required that you didn't crave acceptance, or conformity, that you could kill your fellow man without blinking an eye. But syndicate mentality redefined _fellow man_ to only include members of the group, and syndicate mentality dictated that all members adhere to syndicate code—a brutal conformity—

"Copper." Vicious said, refusing to look at Spike. "Copper."

His voice rang out, eerily loud in the silence, echoing, reflecting off the black marble tiles, absorbed by the red carpet, cascading down the high walls and reaching through the ceiling, and that one word, _copper_, became part of that room, part of its ancient Chinese artifacts and lacquered chairs.

"Okay." Shin came back, holding a contract, a candle, a copper coin, a pair of tongs, and a pin. "This is just for records. We usually don't do this, because so many members want to join each day—we just send them through the computer. But you guys are special."

Vicious kept his eyes averted, scared, scared to fucking _death_, for illogical and unreasonable reasons, they couldn't even be called reasons. He was scared, but he kept his hands from shaking as he pricked his finger with the pin. He kept his hands from shaking as he squeezed his finger to milk out the blood. He pressed his finger down on the contract paper.

Spike did the same. Vicious looked at their bloody fingerprints, next to each other, nestled like good friends.

"Sear it on this." Shin pushed the heated coin in their direction with the tongs.

Spike went first, and Vicious saw his hand jerk from the pain.

Shin turned over the coin, and Vicious pressed his finger against the coin. He held his arm still, refusing to acknowledge the pain.

This was how it began. An informal, rather hurried, and thoroughly modest, mundane induction into the Red Dragons, sealed on a piece of contract paper and on two sides of a copper coin. It seemed ironic that greater things might be able to come from this. This seemed a pathetic pact, something one would make in the backyard shed of a suburban household on a hot summer day, ten years old, with a best friend.

"We'll keep this." Lin said, and took the coin. "For symbolic reasons."

"Symbolic my ass." Spike cursed. "My fucking _finger._"

"Stop whining." Vicious somehow managed to say. "You've been through worse."

--

_End Part 1_

--

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! xD This has reached over 100 reviews, which is amazing in itself. I started this out, planning for it to be an episodic type of fic that accounted some day-to-day adventures in the lives of pre-Julia Spike and Vicious. My hopes for it then escalated into some kind of pompous epic that would account the entire history of the Red Dragons… and then it dimmed down into a more modest type of epic starring everybody's favorite brooding gangster, Vicious.

I end Part 1 here because it seems fitting (I apologize for making it such a short chapter) that it would end with their induction into the Chinese Red Dragons…

I have high hopes for this fic (I haven't even gotten to _why _it's called "Symphony Hall" yet… of course it has to go on). I've got manymany pages of notes and plans written out—all that remains is for it all to be implemented. xO And for all the readers that have been following this for a while, you all know how long it takes me to churn out a chapter, no matter how big or small. Oo

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you will stay tuned for Part 2 (which will still be under the title "Symphony Hall") Until then, readers, thank you _so much_ for all your support and love. x)

--

"So I hear you got the assignment."

Vicious looked up from his desk. "I did."

"You leave tomorrow." Spike placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward.

Vicious put away his case debrief and sighed impatiently. "I am."

"Great."

Spike sat down and crossed his arms, looking to all the world like a petulant kid. Vicious didn't know what to do. It was obvious that Spike knew enough about the assignment to come into his office and start demanding things.

"Three days."

"That's correct."

"In a fucking _war zone._"

"To you."

Spike's hands clenched. Vicious felt a pang of satisfaction, ill-earned but well-deserved.

"Then you don't think very highly of my abilities." Spike said airily.

"I do." Vicious said.

"Not enough, apparently. You picked _Lin_ to go with you."

Vicious shrugged. "Get over it."

"Lin is a fucking _clerk,_ my friend. How the hell is he going to keep tabs on you?"


End file.
